Even when you try to use chatGPT like a dry research tool it will preferentially generate text that contains statements to affirm your feelings.
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@futurebird It definitely is luxury; I pay to have ad free services. I can afford it, but many cannot.
@starlily @futurebird Sometimes even when you do pay, they add ads later.
And by sometimes, I mean Usually.
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Ad-free spaces are already coded this way culturally. I don't think it'd be that hard.
@futurebird @starlily I think we should associate ads with harassment. Especially personalized ones.
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@futurebird @SomeVeganCheeseIsOk i actually find the extra language makes the search harder - more words to parse to get to the meaning
Just give me the facts, please!@leadegroot @futurebird I am spoiled by searches that provide niche blogs on unpopular topics
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@starlily @futurebird Sometimes even when you do pay, they add ads later.
And by sometimes, I mean Usually.
@Epic_Null @futurebird Not wrong. I watch enough YT content that paying for it to remove ads is worthwhile, but any creator of any size is now forced to have "in-content promotion" that of course isnt blocked in any way other than the fast forward button.
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Living in a world without ads is a big part of what I think of as luxury if that makes any sense?
Listen, we are never going to get a big feature in The Atlantic or The New Yorker about how healthy, mentally freeing, and spiritually grounding it can be to purge all advertisements from your life, or about how so often this is impossible. (Dear reader can you infer why this will never happen?)
But, maybe we can start a stealth campaign of our own. What is freedom? No ads.
@futurebird @starlily I identify with this so hard. I hate advertising with a passion. I remember visiting a Californian city perhaps a decade ago that had strict public advertising laws, and feeling such a relief just being there. Trying to search for which one it was just now I came up pretty empty, but apparently San Paulo famously removed a lot of public ads, and a few other big cities followed suit. I wish I lived in one of them!
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Even when you try to use chatGPT like a dry research tool it will preferentially generate text that contains statements to affirm your feelings.
My interaction with it is minimal. I have a year long premium subscription because of a work-sponsored workshop. Rather than totally ignore it I ask it the same kind of questions every few months to see how it works. I first asked it for "good papers about the arboreal ant nests called 'ant gardens'?"
It gave me a numbered list with links.
But then:
@futurebird
I've always dismissed these monstrosities as "a new type of search engine that's designed to roleplay as your friend and promote the vendor's preferred sources even harder".
as much as I hate Google's AI summaries* they at least link to the original sources, so you can see how brutally the chatbot mangled the material.
(since the copyright argument against LLMs is particularily prevalent in software, I assume all the coding chatbots don't bother crediting the source material at all).
* never had to deal with them personally, since I'd already switched to Startpage and the occasional trip to SearXNG -
Living in a world without ads is a big part of what I think of as luxury if that makes any sense?
Listen, we are never going to get a big feature in The Atlantic or The New Yorker about how healthy, mentally freeing, and spiritually grounding it can be to purge all advertisements from your life, or about how so often this is impossible. (Dear reader can you infer why this will never happen?)
But, maybe we can start a stealth campaign of our own. What is freedom? No ads.
An ad-free life is a wonderful goal!
I'm pretty close to it, I think, unless I'm in the room while my husband is watching sports on cable TV. OMG the ads on those channels are wild!
I went to a movie in the theater recently and they have so many ads before the trailers. Thank goodness for the library. I often borrow DVDs/BluRays.
I agree that no one is completely immune from propaganda.
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@Epic_Null @futurebird Not wrong. I watch enough YT content that paying for it to remove ads is worthwhile, but any creator of any size is now forced to have "in-content promotion" that of course isnt blocked in any way other than the fast forward button.
@starlily @Epic_Null @futurebird fwiw, you may find the sponsorblock extension useful in that case
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Living in a world without ads is a big part of what I think of as luxury if that makes any sense?
Listen, we are never going to get a big feature in The Atlantic or The New Yorker about how healthy, mentally freeing, and spiritually grounding it can be to purge all advertisements from your life, or about how so often this is impossible. (Dear reader can you infer why this will never happen?)
But, maybe we can start a stealth campaign of our own. What is freedom? No ads.
@futurebird @starlily @ahimsa_pdx
In the rare times that I encounter the web without an adblocker I am appalled. I just cannot believe anyone uses the damn thing without one. (But I am also one of those logophobic Gen Xers who removes or covers the branding on things I own, whenever possible without destroying them.)
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Hearing someone validate our feelings makes us feel good because it means we are correct and not alone.
Neither of these things might be true when it's an LLM since it will ALWAYS do this no matter if the deal is good or not.
No matter if I really was investigating a hard to research topic, or if I was just being lazy and need to learn more of the correct vocabulary.
It's really bad.
@futurebird it's a tool, it works. Machines are programming US humans.
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@futurebird It definitely is luxury; I pay to have ad free services. I can afford it, but many cannot.
@starlily @futurebird I can afford to buy subscriptions to adfree experience and even then the platform shows ads and when i use an adblocker, i get banned. So it has become much easier to just stop using those services and returning to reading the classics
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@Epic_Null @futurebird Not wrong. I watch enough YT content that paying for it to remove ads is worthwhile, but any creator of any size is now forced to have "in-content promotion" that of course isnt blocked in any way other than the fast forward button.
@starlily @Epic_Null @futurebird with the recent lawsuit on YouTube, maybe they will integrate sponsorblock
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@futurebird I keep hearing people refer to it as "he" and it really bugs me, such a dangerous mental framing
@paulcox @futurebird a local artist shared some screenshots of quotes from an LLM doing a cutesy funny psychoanalysis of them, so delighted withvits 'accurate' summary of them.
They gave it a human name (forget what). Ugh.
I didn't comment on its access to their data and the Barnum effect, but unfollowed. It's a bit depressing to watch people embrace this garbage. -
I'll say one more thing, if the text generator has eased you into talking with it like it's a person. If it's felt easy to use and helpful, or if it has cheered you up with a compliment don't beat yourself up about that too much, but please do notice that it's happening.
It's like commercial with a beautiful person who makes you wish you could be like them. Or a salesman who compliments you. That's all this is.
What is it doing in the coding, research, work tool?
Great question.
RE: https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/117128667664658202
@futurebird you probably already read this, but just in case:
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Skipping and doing your best to ignore is a good start. But they still influence us in ways we can't anticipate.
I have zero use for a giant pickup truck, I can't afford one, and I still want one. I'm angry at myself for wanting one, and I desperately hope I'm too smart to ever buy one. But no matter how smart I think I am, it's clear that ten thousand commercials with Bob Seger's music and Sam Elliott's voice and absurd fantasy rugged individuals has sunk hooks into me that I can't dislodge.
The real solution is ad-blockers of every possible kind and as much as it's practical (it often isn't), avoiding environments that contain ads.
@firebreathingduck @petealexharris @futurebird and ad-blocking is going to be much more difficult as ads have evolved from past's flashy banners, to more recent's dummy "pretend search results", to nowadays' "helpful" chatbots trying to nudge you into using some specific service/platform/shop.
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@firebreathingduck @petealexharris @futurebird and ad-blocking is going to be much more difficult as ads have evolved from past's flashy banners, to more recent's dummy "pretend search results", to nowadays' "helpful" chatbots trying to nudge you into using some specific service/platform/shop.
@dryak @firebreathingduck @futurebird
Ads are always detectable by an ad blocker, because like spam email they have essential characteristics: without trying to sell you something or redirect you to another page to do so (via a tracking link to record the redirect and charge the ad customer for it) they wouldn't be doing what the ad customer or ad company wants. Detectable and blockable. -
@dryak @firebreathingduck @futurebird
Ads are always detectable by an ad blocker, because like spam email they have essential characteristics: without trying to sell you something or redirect you to another page to do so (via a tracking link to record the redirect and charge the ad customer for it) they wouldn't be doing what the ad customer or ad company wants. Detectable and blockable.@petealexharris @firebreathingduck @futurebird You're thinking of old school "click here to buy" ads or sponsor links to the tools and a materials in a tutorial.
I am more thinking of: coding agents adresses a complex automation task by writing a collection of github actions. If this happens on a private repo, the runners that will execute those will be paid and bring money in to Microsoft Azure.
[...]
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@dryak @firebreathingduck @futurebird
Sure people are going to be doing a lot of things with clusters of word-guessing machines that don't make any commercial sense. I don't think it's relevant to whether humans or ad blockers can detect and remove ads directed at humans on web pages humans are looking at. -
@Epic_Null @futurebird Not wrong. I watch enough YT content that paying for it to remove ads is worthwhile, but any creator of any size is now forced to have "in-content promotion" that of course isnt blocked in any way other than the fast forward button.
@starlily @Epic_Null @futurebird i can rec invidious for watching youtube without ads and tracking
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@futurebird It definitely is luxury; I pay to have ad free services. I can afford it, but many cannot.
@starlily @futurebird Eventually the internet will be nothing but ads served to people who can't afford to avoid them (and therefore to buy anything).
