American society in 1953:

Buy this cute little three bedroom split level brick house with a yard in a nice neighborhood. It costs $2,000 down and if you can't afford that, don't worry the government will pay the down payment for you. It's got all the latest and greatest appliances in it, which you also own. Now run along and do whatever your weird little hearts desire in the safety and privacy and security of your own home. That property will be worth 2,5 million dollars one day.

American society in 2023:

Buy this new telephone. You need it to get or keep a job. It's the same as the old one. We put hinges on it, a technology that has existed since 1600BC. Your old phone won't work any more because we told it not to. Pay us to take it back. Buy this one to replace it. You don't own it. We own it. You don't own any software on it. We own it. You pay us just to hold it. Plus you pay us monthly rent if you want to do things with it such as call people. It's made of cheap Chinese plastic. It's spying on you. It will die next year. It's $2,000. You will do this every single year until you die.

@Em0nM4stodon

Beigevengers assemble... preferably in basic.

@jwz an often overlooked and important aspect of this conversation is that corporate fleets of cars can apply for, and receive, special parking permits allowing them to use drop off/loading zone areas. Which means these parking tickets were not for relatively normal parking violations but for much more blatant and dangerous abuse of our roads like parking in fire lanes and in the middle of roads and turning lanes. Things like that.

These are not *oops I left my car parked for 2 hours but I only paid for 1". These are "oops I endangered half the city."

@et @sundogplanets that makes me so sad

@fullywoolly THIS.

@zombiecide "I don't know anyone who has the privilege and personality to be unabashedly bad at things."

This is literally false.

Again, EVERY person who makes art, music, dance, code, design, etc... ALL those people that you like, were unabashedly bad at it first. EVERY single one. The fact that you think that never happens is exactly what AI has stolen from you.

@AinsleyLowbeer hey you know what makes you good at that?

Being bad at that first.

@JackMexa4 yes but the next generation also needs to be making bad art. Now.

One thing that keeps me up at night is the progressive certainty that we as a society are slowly but surely losing our ability to be bad at things. We are ceding that skill to AI.

"You don't understand, without AI, I couldn't have drawn this/written this/designed this." says a person, certain that surely this, this argument right here is the nail in the coffin of the anti-AI argument. Utility: "Without this thing, I would have been bad at this task."

Yes. Correct. You would have been bad at it. And that's ok. Not only because it's just... Ok to be bad at things in general. But also because being bad at a thing is the first necessary step to learning how to do a thing.

Every musician you love has spent thousands of hours first being bad at being a musician. Every artist that brings you to tears has spent thousands of hours being bad at art. Every single designer with a master's degree in design has spent thousands upon thousands of hours designing things that are utter crap.

We learn how to do a thing by first being bad at it. And then noticing what skills we need to acquire to be better at it. And then honing those skills on a million failed attempts. And THEN we are finally good at doing it.

And being bad at things isn't just about learning how to do it yourself. It also teaches you how to listen more effectively to music. How to see art with the eyes of an artist. How to study a design for design flaws before it's even built. It teaches you good taste. How to perceive the humanity in the things all around you - things built by humans, for other humans.

No, the biggest problem with AI isn't that it makes bad art - although it most assuredly does also do that. It's that it robs human beings of the legitimacy of creating bad art ourselves.

How can anyone ever be expected to learn to do a thing if we can't ever be bad at it first?

Unsafe to eat:
- eggs
- beef
- lettuce
- tofu
- guacamole
- blueberries
- jalapenos
- mangos
- tortillas

Safe to eat:
- the rich

Nothing to see here just the actual US government posting word for word Nazi slogans

@DaveMWilburn

What's incredible to me is that every element of each of those crimes is materially no different than what Garrett is doing with his cameras. If he thinks living under 24/7 constant surveillance is somehow causing criminal harm, then Garrett should argue that in open court and watch as the biggest class action lawsuit of all time lands in his lap.

@cstross @oneiros

Hell, I bet you wouldn't even need the camera or any tech at all. Just stand on the sidewalk and look at his home with a pen and notebook in hand. Wear a T-shirt that says "camera crew". Maybe bring a lawnchair and have a seat. See how long it takes for Garrett to have a problem with a human being existing nearby looking in his general direction.

@cstross @oneiros if somebody does this, my suggestion is to not even make it a functional camera. Just make it look like a camera. Literally just point a hunk of plastic in the direction of his home from a public sidewalk and see how quickly you get arrested on trumped up charges of filming him without permission.

@marcotietz rules for thee but not for me

Let's play a little game, Garrett Langley, CEO of Flock Cameras.

I'll stand on the public street outside 2588 Winslow Dr NE, in Atlanta, GA, with a camera facing due west, and I'll record in my records the exact date and time of every time somebody enters or leaves the front door of that address, what that person was wearing, what car they drove, the description of the vehicle, the licence plate on the vehicle, and any other details I can film from the public sidewalk. I'll do this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just in case you happen to do a crime. Then I'll sell all that information to the highest bidder online.

I'll do all this openly, without any pretense of secrecy. After all, I'm doing this for your safety. The game is, see how long it takes for me to be arrested.

Now tell me how any of my actions are materially different from the intended function of your flock cameras. And tell me why you don't have to compromise your privacy, but I do.

Listen if you are a coder and your name is Lila or Lily or Lilith or Lana or Laura, I'm just going to assume you're trans ok. I am working with a 90% correlation bias here.

@KateConnors forgive me if I don't believe the man standing in front of a Nazi flag in the uniform of people who somehow keep on shooting us in the face.

@gilgwath

It was never about "defending women and children".

Just like it was never about separated water fountains.

It's about fascistic control.

Me, writing the plot of the next Wolfenstein game: "so the fascist Nazis invaded America and they have these weapons called Shock Gloves and sometimes they use them to torture children."

Anyway here's a real headline: