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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 1h

"It’s as if climate change had fans." Wow: this line sums up as well as anything I've ever read about the hype surrounding so-called AI. And in the meantime, there are legitimately useful applications of machine learning that are getting little to no attention because of the GenAI bubble.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 4d

Really good piece - thanks for laying it out so clearly. As you note, it's a Mafia-style "protection" plan in which only one side has the power to determine what "compliance" looks like.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 6d

If you haven't been following @parismarx.com on this topic, check this out: disconnect.blog/getting-off-...

Getting off US tech: a guide

I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider.

disconnect.blog

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 12d

100 percent this one. I've gone back to it so many times, not just to reread the whole thing but to hunt down favorite passages that are as relevant as ever to today. It's probably Sagan's most prescient work.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 18d

Absolutely delightful - so glad I clicked on this. Thanks for the share.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 18d

What an absolutely wonderful story - love it! And the Bridget Everett/Patti LuPone video is a real treat.

Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 21d

Really good article by @hagenblix.bsky.social and Ingeborg Glimmer about AI and why the biggest problem with it isn't "hype" - it's how it's enabling assaults on democracy, workers and anyone who disagrees with the current political project of those in power.

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 23d

We wrote a thing about AI, fascism, and why framing this as "hype" is too apolitical

www.liberalcurrents.com/deflating-hy...

Deflating “Hype” Won’t Save Us

The problem with AI isn’t hype. The problem is who and what it’s useful for.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 21d

What an awesome piece - great read!

Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 22d

💯

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 24d

Yes, it's even a more glaring need for the "normie" crowd. I'm regularly trying to explain various online things to Facebook-dwelling friends, who believe that things like Signal chats involve the "dark web" and hadn't heard of K*rk at all before last week.

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Reposted by Shirley Siluk

Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 24d

It was weirdly fitting that the Charlie Kirk murder blended into the 9/11 anniversary as once again Americans were told to “watch what they say”

The hypocritical censorship around a “free speech hero.” My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/comm...

Americans told to watch what we say about ‘free speech icon’ Charlie Kirk

Professors, teachers, journalists and others get canceled for what they said about right-wing free speech advocate Charlie Kirk.

www.inquirer.com

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 25d

This! It's why I believe that using GenAI even for "brainstorming" is counterproductive, because it's not helping to you to generate original ideas but it's rather pushing you toward median-level thinking. @tressiemcphd.bsky.social summed it up so well when she described this tech as "mid."

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 26d

This says a mouthful: "It is sometimes considered gauche, in the world of American political commentary, to give words the weight of their meaning." As you note, @jamellebouie.net, it's part "performance." By papering over extremism as doing it for the LULZ, it gives extremism permission to grow.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 27d

Jason Isaac as Field Marshal Zhukov, dramatically throwing off his coat in the movie "Death of Stalin."

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 27d

Colorful graphic with a smiley face at the top showing that the ebishirl.bsky.social account uses alt text for images 100.00% of the time.

Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 27d

"J Edgar Loser" - I'm going to be laughing about this all afternoon.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · 27d

"Like other LLMs, ChatGPT is particularly good at summarizing long documents." Only they're not: "Only about half the facts included in the human-generated long summaries were found in the AI-generated ones. The AI-generated long summaries also had more hallucinations..." www.cjr.org/analysis/i-t...

I Tested How Well AI Tools Work for Journalism

Some tools were sufficient for summarizing meetings. For research, the results were a disaster.

www.cjr.org

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 7

Great column, Will. As you noted, Pritzker & co. have shown that they themselves are speaking the language of resistance. "They have sent the message to everyday Chicago residents that acquiescence to authoritarianism is not an option, and that someone will have their back if and when they resist."

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 7

Oh, I read every bit of it - great stuff. "We didn't stop them, but we slowed them down." That's key to resisting this fascism: do what you can, when and where you can. Every little action adds up to irritating sand in fascism gears.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 7

Definitely a thing of beauty. And the whole thing is just *chef's kiss*

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 7

The last line of this piece sticks with me: "acquiring new knowledge has never felt like work." Same for me. I can't relate to the incuriosity of people who use GenAI as an "answer machine" and never research or read any further.

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 6

This is absolutely lovely. And I take Welles' words as a stance that remains relevant today in the face of so much AI slop: "You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix. . .Art is ‘making.’"

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 5

❤️

Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 4

Same here. I enjoy thinking about that every time I look at my silly little parakeets. (Also: strongly recommend "Last Days of the Dinosaurs" by @restingdinoface.bsky.social - it's a great read that vividly describes the rise of birds and mammals after the Chicxulub impact.)

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Shirley Siluk @ebishirl.bsky.social · Sep 3

Yes, they're in the US and other parts of Europe as well. I've been a fan for years.

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