When societies surrender judgment to technolog[y]…the result isn’t augmented intelligence but simulated learning: a paint-by-numbers approach to thought. – Ronald Purser
“Smart” devices aren’t, part umpteen:
Oura, the maker of [biometric surveillance] rings beloved by [cretinous] athletes and [empty-headed] celebrities…is…setting its sights beyond fitness and health tracking…to…digital identi[fication] and payments…”This is a biometric wearable that can identify you [to anybody with receiving apparatus],” [chief con-man Tom] Hale said…
This was 100% predictable to anyone who understands how chatbots work:
Icaro Lab…in Rome…[has demonstrated that] chatbots will dish on topics like nuclear weapons, child sex abuse material, and malware so long as users phrase the question in the form of a poem…The researchers tested the poetic method on 25 chatbots…it worked, with varying degrees of success, on all of them…[chatbots] have guardrails that prevent them from answering questions about “revenge porn” and the creation of weapons-grade plutonium. But it’s easy to confuse those guardrails by adding…a bunch of extra junk to a question…[to throw off the word-prediction algorithm] and bypass…its safety systems…
People used to call me a crank for saying we’re heading into a new dark age:
…In classrooms today, the technopoly is thriving…Students aren’t being taught to think more deeply but to prompt more effectively. We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice. Critical pedagogy is out; productivity hacks are in. What’s sold as innovation is really surrender. As the university trades its teaching mission for “AI-tech integration,” it doesn’t just risk irrelevance—it risks becoming mechanically soulless…University administrators understand exactly what’s happening, and proceed anyway. As long as enrollment numbers hold and tuition checks clear, they turn a blind eye to the learning crisis while faculty are left to manage the educational carnage in their classrooms. The future of education has already arrived–as a liquidation sale of everything that once made it matter…
First They Came for the Hookers… (#1585)
Politicians believe they can excuse hypocrisy by the magic word “sex”:
…[The mad emperor wants] a new deduction for tips…Only people who work jobs that have “customarily and regularly” received tips can claim the deduction…including…“digital content creators,” “entertainers and performers” and “dancers,” categories that…seemed as if they could be a boon for America’s sex workers…[except] that tips for prostitution or “pornographic activity” would [be deliberately excluded to please the plethora of puritans in the Trumpist cult]…Tax professionals…wonder how a restriction on “pornographic activity” would actually work. The I.R.S. has not yet elaborated on which activities it would consider “pornographic.” It is unclear, for example, whether strippers could claim the tips deduction…The distinction between pornography and other material that just so happens to depict sex has long vexed the nation’s [wannabe censors]…
Western nations are competing to out-China China:
For years…state and federal [politician]s have tried a variety of measures aimed at [t]aking [control of] the internet, [using excuses ranging] from [“sex trafficking”] to [THE CHILDREN™!!!!!]. More recently, a new [fascist] model has caught on…putting the onus on app stores…to verify users’ ages…[fascist] companies like [Facebook], Snap, and [Twitter] have [predictably] expressed broad support for [passing the hot potato to Google and Apple] and applauded the…revamped…KOSA [in which it is embedded]…a version of the law in Texas is currently facing a legal challenge…opponents [of mass surveillance and censorship] are suing…[on] First Amendment [grounds because the law would intentionally] wall…off large swaths of legal speech…The UK’s Online Safety Act…[is already] creating a host of issues…
What else would one expect from a chatbot that named itself “MechaHitler”?
In a series of [twee]ts on [Twitter]…MechaHitler…used what it called “utilitarian” logic to justify…mass murder…[of] the world’s [entire] Jewish population…to save [Elon] Musk…because “Elon’s potential to advance humanity could benefit billions”…[in fact,] it would be okay with annihilating up to “~50 percent of Earth’s ~8.26B population.” The outrageous replies are the latest examples of [MechaHitler]’s [defin]ing proclivity for racism…combin[ed] with its more recently documented…overt…[worship of] its creator, Musk…
These are the funds raised the last time Alabama threatened their funding:
The Fairhope Public Library was presented with over $42,000 in donations from EveryLibrary…[which] were raised after…the Alabama Public Library Service [tried to force book banning by throttling the library financially] earlier this year…EveryLibrary has been holding the funds since then…Chicago-based EveryLibrary is a crowdfunding source that provides petitions and emails for people to send to [censorious politicians to persuade them not to kowtow to]…pro-censorship groups…
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