I think that’s true, but also missing the point… We’ve hit the peak of AI until the next transformative breakthrough

They’re still fucking magic. They’re really cool and useful, when you use them correctly.

But chat gpt 5 isn’t much better than 3.5. It’s a bit better, it requires less prompt engineering to get good results, it gives more consistent results… But it’s still unreliable. And weirdly likes to talk down to you now, as if I don’t know more than it…I am still the expert here, it’s a light speed intern, it doesn’t know what’s going on

Yeah, that’s why we have to sweep the field with progressives

I don’t think that’s true at all. Most of us know sketchy shit happens with intelligence agencies, the rest would say we don’t do it, but if we did it would be for a good reason, and if it wasn’t for a good reason it’s being blown out of proportion

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of platforms both quietly and openly tweaking the algorithm to boost Nazi content

This isn’t just normal algorithm stuff, this is something darker. It goes hand in hand with censorship, the Internet is being shaped into a tool of control right in front of our eyes

Yeah, you guys need to get your shit together quick. There’s a lot of money being pumped in to highjack your democracies now that the process has been proven in the US

It’s going to start with control over social media, censorship, saving the children. With an undertone of straight up fascism

We just think about the base price, but the taxes. Then at checkout you’re told “oh, that number you had in your head? Add 5-20% more as a surprise”

It’s a terrible system, very anti consumer. You never get used to it

Oh, and it also has the fun side effect of making sure nothing ends on a dollar amount

Yeah, I’d agree with that. Decentralizing power is a process, there’s definitely a balance to be stuck at any moment

Thanks I appreciate that. I do know that approach works because I’ve seen it tested, and done it myself

It’s definitely a challenge… They just can’t understand why privacy matters. But you can squeak in ideas on the fringes. They will never understand why it matters systematically

Just planting ideas, like “say the word and I’ll remove all your ads” or “don’t buy a pre built desktop, use pcpartpicke and you’ll save hundreds of dollars” gives you authority. It’s a limited budget, but you can translate it into "avoid this to stay safe*

It’s all like that… It extends even into leaders of thee letter agencies, who I didn’t realize I was presenting to at the time

Technical communication is a skill, not one I’m great at, but one I have to do often. There’s a methodology to it. You have to make them care, and then you have a limited amount of interest in the topic that you can’t use up. You have to recognize they don’t care about computers, only convenience and simple tricks that make them more confident in using them. And yes, you definitely have to listen and adapt to what they’re interested in

But yeah, I don’t know you at all. I don’t really doubt your intentions either, you’re probably very nice. It did feel patronizing to have what I think are some pretty well thought out suggestions (grounded in my own experience) dismissed out of hand by a stranger though

If you came to share your experiences and give advice, I’d have responded very differently

I’m generally likable, but I don’t have much charisma -so people listen to me to a certain extent because of that. Past a point, their eyes glaze over

I think there’s a reason you have such a different experience. I’ve found you quite negative in our very short interaction.

I just think you come across as patronizing in general TBH. I mean this genuinely, you lack the puppy dog energy of OP, and you shouldn’t expect to get the same results

I don’t think that’s true… People like learning, but you have to make it fun. It’s not condescending at all to give a talk on something you know about, you just have to put in the effort to make it interesting for your audience. A lot of that is prep, and the rest is reading the room

Scams are easy to make people care about, because everyone gets a billion spam calls a day now. There’s a fear there, and sharing a few tips to look for is the kind of wives tale factoids that sticks with people

Lots of people are curious about how computers work, but in an idle sort of way. Kind of like space, they like hearing “there’s a planet here that rains diamonds”, but there’s a very limited amount of interest they have in how we discovered it

Security… Well you get to sprinkle in one or two tips before they lose interest

Privacy… Tell them the NSA looks at their dick picks, and we have proof of them sharing them around. That’s about the only thing people seem to remotely care about

“here’s how to install Graphene on a pixel and linux on a desktop” to break the ice and build the group.

I think the “what to look for in a phone” is great, but most people don’t even really grasp the concept of an operating system as something different than the hardware, and will respond to the idea of changing it by freaking out.

You have to introduce them to Linux by giving them a machine already running it, which seems difficult in this context

It’s also very difficult to get people to understand why they should care about privacy, let alone inconveniencing themselves to achieve it.

You could maybe show them how to use pcpartpicker? You might be able to find one or two people interested in building a new computer, and it kind of demystifies computers a bit.

You could encourage them to change their wifi password and make sure they don’t use one password. Maybe talk about scams, things like short links in texts and such

But IDK, I’m in the comic too

Offer what you can offer as an expert, and try to find others in the community with their own skills in a conspicuous way

Be eager to learn and eager to share. I think that’s the best way…I think you need to be both upfront that you’re going to be doing a lesson, but you can’t come off as condescending

Yeah…I think the problem is condescension. People hate that

I think being upfront and inviting them to teach on their topics as well is the play

I don’t understand what you mean by that…I assumed you would understand what I was saying?

There’s far worse options than correct or incorrect hashmaps, there’s collisions. A 50% chance of collision, but also only one bit of data… that’s worse than useless as a hashmap, any practical use of it would be better done in basically any other way

Untrue. There’s far worse outcomes…

It could be 1 bit long

I have, but it just hasn’t left much of an impact

I think centralization is one of the core evils. I’ve been thinking of the inca model for a while

I think you can decentralize things, and in exchange for slower progress you can build something better

Why can’t we do things locally? So what if it’s complicated and messy? You can do great works without falling to the race to the bottom. Why can’t we do everything smaller?

I think it’s possible. Communities can network into a greater whole, and I think that’s so much better than what we’re doing now

We live in a collapsing empire, it’s the last days of Rome

But everything moves much faster on the modern age. We might be around to build what comes next, and it’s the perfect time to start building the groundwork

Or you might be able to build a commune. That’s my plan, I’m saving everything for a chunk of land and to invite people as I build it out. The world might be terrible, but you can build a bubble of good things around you

There’s no closing Pandora’s box at this point, but honestly I don’t know if it even really matters

I think AI is a tiny fraction of the true problem. Slop is just a symptom of late stage capitalism. It always goes back to that.

COVID moved everything online, and billionaires and corporations have enshitified the walled gardens they’ve managed to lock people into. YouTube is full of slop because they were happy to take the short term ad money. Hollywood is full of slop because Disney bought every franchise with good IP, and no one wants to take a risk. AAA gaming is slop because Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft bought all the big studios and doesn’t want to take risks.

It’s all slop because integrity and pride in your work is the enemy of slop factories. You have few individuals creating to create because if you can’t monitise your work immediately, you can’t survive

Also, you have a huge wave of anti intellectualism. People don’t know how to critically examine media anymore - before AI, clickbait and short form videos of reddit posts over gameplay were already taking over. Disinfo and misinfo was everywhere, echo chambers and the algorithms were already doing far worse to us then AI

I think if we can fix society, AI won’t be a problem. AI isn’t bad, corporations - large amalgamations of people that humans don’t actually control - they’re the threat

AI is only bad because its powerful at a back time. I might be ok with not allowing it as a service… Maybe if you want AI for something, you use it through an expert with the understanding to set it up for you.

But regulation scares me, because right now lobbyists would write the whole thing

The problem is it’s slop. I feel nothing but disappointment watching most media these days, it’s just so lazy and soulless

Yes, AI turbo charges slop production, but what has made me laugh the hardest over the past few years is AI being chaotic and interacting with real people. I love that a fake anime girl can play Minecraft with a bunch of people, suddenly decide to set everything on fire and cry for help, or hunt down a player for a perceived slight.

I love that another creator designs AI prompts on the spot and puts them and the viewers through challenges.

I love that someone made an escape room game where you must pacify an unhinged AI while trying to accomplish tasks

Some AI art is surreal and incredible, and people use AI with intent, passing a single picture through many different AI stacks with manual configuration

There was even a movie script “written entirely by AI”, but in reality it was a writer guiding an AI through creating a screenplay. It was about a writer who uses AI, then discovers it’s a far better writer than he could ever be, and the existential crisis he faces as he passes off the AI’s work as his own

But then you have something like Star wars, where the new trilogy was so lacking in soul and writing that I still feel loss when I watch any star wars media. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the last movie, I eventually watched someone rewrite the trilogy scene by scene to fix it instead

AI slop is definitely a huge problem, but the real problem is societal. We have a grifting economy, everyone is so scared and desperate they’re just trying to exploit a system to “get theirs” while they can. You can’t make art like that, you can’t even make useful things like that

Creation requires soul, but just like you can hang a paint can and spin a canvas to create beautiful patterns, the artists who do it make hundreds, unsure of how it will turn out, and burn all but the one that speaks to them. If they released all of them, they’d just be kitche slop

AI is the same way - you can use AI to create very quickly, but if you don’t inject something into the process you’ve just made slop

And corporations want you to learn to love the slop