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Reposted by Sarah Florini

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 5d

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How to Turn Off AI Tools Like Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, and More - Consumer Reports

AI features are crowding into Google search, Gmail, iPhones, Windows laptops, and other products. If you're suffering from AI overload, these settings can help.

www.consumerreports.org

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 3d

Robot personhood/rights is conceptually bogus and legally puts more power/rights in the hands of those that develop and deploy robots/AI systems

firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

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Reposted by Sarah Florini

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d

Dudes have been fantasizing about a computer friend in their glasses for a long time. This is 1959! www.wired.com/story/secret...

The beauty of the n-tuple method was that it could recognize many variants of the same character: Most Qs tended to score pretty close to other Qs. Better yet, the process worked with any pattern, not just text. According to an essay coauthored by Robert S. Boyer, a mathematician and longtime friend of Woody's, the n-tuple method helped define the field of pattern recognition; it was among the early set of efforts to ask,
"How can we make a machine do something like what
people do?"
Around the time when he was devising the n-tuple method, Woody had his first daydream about building the machine that he called a "computer person." Years later, he would recall the "wild excitement" he felt as he
conjured up a list of skills for the artificial consciousness:
"I wanted it to read printed characters on a page and handwritten script as well. I could see it, or a part of it, in a small camera that would fit on my glasses, with an attached earplug that would whisper into my ear the names of my friends and acquaintances as I met them on the street... For you see, my computer friend had the ability to recognize faces."

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 5d

so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff

www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’

Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. “I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...

www.404media.co

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 9d

This is what they appear to be claiming. That laws only protect you if you don’t explicitly opt out of having crimes committed against you.

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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 9d

Say it often, say it loud:

"Overall, research has not supported the common-sense presumption that digital approaches to schooling are better than non-digital alternatives. At the broadest level, widespread computer use in education has been found to be associated with lower student achievement."

Fit for Purpose? How Today’s Commercial Digital Platforms Subvert Key Goals of Public Education

Digital educational platforms have become ubiquitous in American classrooms, with tools like Google Workspace for Education, Kahoot!, Zearn, Khan Academy, and many others now structuring curriculum, i...

nepc.colorado.edu

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 9d

In other news, I will be rifling through people’s pockets and taking whatever I like unless they opt out.

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 9d

Exclusive: OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora video generator, which creates videos featuring copyrighted material unless copyright holders opt out of having their work appear.

OpenAI’s New Sora Video Generator to Require Copyright Holders to Opt Out

Executives at the startup notified talent agencies and studios over the last week.

on.wsj.com

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 9d

Current wearables innovation is mainly invested in figuring out the right form factor to convince people to adopt an always on camera and mic.

Cutest AI Ever? This Wearable Kitten-Shaped Camera Won Me Over

The Looki L1 is a fascinating addition to the burgeoning landscape of AI wearables. Plus, you can buy one now for $199.

www.cnet.com

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 10d

Exactly! It’s such a bizarre position to argue.

Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 10d

And all “prompt engineering” seems to be is good communication and reasoning skills. The ability to ask good questions is not an LLM specific skill. So what “skills“ do I need to so that I am “not left behind?“

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 10d

If you have to “learn” anything to use LLMs, it’s how to get around their shortcomings. That you have to check everything for fabrications. Maybe add things to your prompts to avoid getting biased outputs.

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 10d

I have never understood this argument: LLMs are here to stay. So we need to learn how to use them.
The whole reason they have proliferated in the last two years is because you basically have to learn nothing to use them. Open a web browser and start asking plunking things into the prompt field.

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 12d

OpenAI's rapid rush into education has been achieved by habituating users through training programs, institutional lock-ins, strategic marketing partnerships, and third party integrations that together are helping it become infrastructural to teaching and learning. It's going to be hard to get out.

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 12d

OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

www.nytimes.com

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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 12d

This has been pushed to the background, but pay attention:

Right now, a stack of bills aimed at reining in AI companies and big tech sits on Gavin Newsom's desk in California. These are the bills Silicon Valley and the GOP tried to ban outright. Now they await Newsom's signature—or veto.

We're about to find out if Silicon Valley owns Gavin Newsom

A guide to the AI and tech bills that have passed the California legislature, and await the governor's signature — or veto.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

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Leta Lestrange @joybella.blacksky.app · 12d

Mind you, these people think SNAP recipients shouldn't be able to buy SODA.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 12d

ZUCKERBERG: “If we end up misspending a couple of hundred billion dollars, I think that that is going to be very unfortunate, obviously. .. But what I’d say is I actually think the risk is higher on the other side.”

$META
youtu.be/23FyskyFoP8?...

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 14d

Yep. For them, if the Antichrist comes sooner, the sooner all of the things that will happen before that are gonna happen. So they are perfectly happy to accelerate that whole timetable and go to heaven earlier.

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Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · Mar 30

(& as I said on twtter early in 2022: transhumanism, Singularitarianism, Accelerationism, longtermism, effective altruism, & Dominionism are all offshoots of the same root Christian Eschatology, even for the adherents who consciously believe themselves to be "secular;" thus they support each other…

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 14d

He’s gonna mess around and prompt some new fundamentalist Christian version of Luddism. Where instead of labor protection, they’re motivated by the apocalypse.

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 14d

There is literally nothing Evangelicals (i.e., the base of the GOP) want more than the End Times. And many of them would be glad to hasten the coming of the Antichrist, because that means hastening Jesus‘s return.

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 14d

This man has no understanding of how Evangelicals think. Because this is not the argument he thinks it is: “Fearing or regulating [tech], or opposing technological progress, would hasten the coming of the Antichrist, Thiel said.”

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 14d

New argument against AI regulation just dropped. Checkmate, atheists.
www.wsj.com/tech/peter-t...

For about a year now, Thiel has been publicly laying out his understanding of biblical prophecies and the potential for the rapid advance of technology to bring about an apocalyptic future.

In a lecture Monday, he encouraged an audience to continue working toward scientific progress, whether in AI or other forms of technology. Fearing or regulating it, or opposing technological progress, would hasten the coming of the Antichrist, Thiel said, according to people who attended.

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Reposted by Sarah Florini

ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 17d

it's not a statistical or a computational limitation, because that implies that if you have better statistical methods or bigger compute or bigger data you can get around these things

the problem is that you're modeling word tokens; you can't get out from under that

this isn't revelatory though

Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 17d

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

www.computerworld.com

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Reposted by Sarah Florini

Chase Mitchell @chasemit.bsky.social · 20d

“You used to be able to say anything” comedians never been more quiet in their lives

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 24d

This is the second time today I’ve seen a post from a news org that says “from [larger number] to [smaller number].” This has to be an LLM thing, right? It’s too awkward for a person to have written.

Mississippi Free Press @mississippifreepress.org · 24d

The average Mississippi driver spent nearly 4% of annual income on auto insurance in 2025—a higher share than in 41 other states, according to Bankrate. The average yearly premium is now $2,149 to $489 less than the national average.

Mississippi Auto Insurance Rates Stabilize After Years of Increases

After years of steady hikes, Mississippi auto insurance rates are showing signs of stabilizing. Decreases this year could affect 80% of drivers.

buff.ly

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Sarah Florini @florini.bsky.social · 24d

I see the New Republic is using AI.

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 24d

While around 50% of Democrats had a positive view of socialism in 2010, only two-thirds do today.

They’re the only partisan group that views socialism more positively than capitalism, at 66 to 44%, respectively. trib.al/ScJu2NQ

Americans Seem to Be Falling Out of Love With Capitalism

According to a new poll, positive views of the economic system have slipped since 2021.

trib.al

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