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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 · 4h

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

Mongabay @mongabay.com · 4h

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 · 4h

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 · 4h

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 · 4h

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 · 6h

"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 · 7h

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 · 8h

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 · 8h

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 · 8h

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 · 8h

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 · 8h

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 · 9h

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 · 9h

“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 · 9h

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 · 9h

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 · 10h

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 · 10h

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 · 11h

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 · 1d

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

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

Simplistically, communities of immigrants form BECAUSE the surrounding community doesn't accept them. It is a defence mechanism. So to blame "poorly" integrated areas on the immigrants, and not the unwelcoming British is... a flex.
As to why that is a problem- well, you'd have to ask Jenrick that.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

Meanwhile, there are ghouls trying to eco-shame users of... checks notes - asthma inhalers. "Yes, we might be using AI to write shitty emails that no-one will read, but look at him over there, struggling to breath - he's JUST as bad..."

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

It's great that renewables have overtaken coal as the biggest source of electricity - but that goal would have been met much earlier if we weren't dicking around with bitcoin mining and huge AI data centers, both of which give fuck all to humanity while burning the planet to a cinder...

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

If you sign up for the @blackharepress.bsky.social Patreon, you get to read my dark drabble, "Revenant". Or you can wait for the bumper Year SEVEN anthology, which will have oodles more, a few of which are also mine! Scaring you, 100 words at a time...
#Spooktober

Black Hare Press @blackharepress.bsky.social · 4d

A PATREON story. Enjoy!

REVENANT by LIAM HOGAN
https://www.patreon.com/posts/139768333

#writingcommunity #readingcommunity #bookblogger #bookpromo #amreading #tbrpile #patreon #drabble #shortstory

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

Obviously the UK should also be applying massive sanctions against Israel as well. But we won't. Because, despite the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of innocents slaughtered (many with US and UK weapons), Israel is apparently beyond anything more than a gentle tap on the wrist.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

Quibbling about what is or could be put to military use misses the point. Russia has become a military economy - everything we sell, and everything we buy, feeds into that. Yes, sanctions are painful for us. But so is a prolonged war in Europe. And compared to the price Ukraine pays...

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 1d

The UK, and the EU, need to apply sanctions seriously. It isn't enough to implement them and wait. Russia always WAS going to find ways around them - so they have to be ramped up, to have even the same initial effect. By this point, more then 3 years in, there should be NO trade at all.