I think this kind of things is potentially quite damaging, but in a subtle way. I read the Guardian article about this, and they highlighted some of the problems. They talked about taking opportunities from actual real people; and the potential for amplifying racial stereotypes. But I reckon there are other subtle problems that I’d like to highlight as well.

It could be argued that the AI character is made in good faith, for entertainment only, with no intention to deceive. And perhaps efforts are taken to be culturally sensitive / accurate, or whatever. So then what’s the problem?

To understand it, perhaps we should first think about why people like this kind of content at all. Different people like things for different reasons, so each individual can think about this from their point of view. But I’d say that a lot of people watch animal videos and documentaries because it gives them a sense of what these animals are like. It shows what they look like, what kind of environment they live in, how they interact in that environment, and how they interact with people. Depending on the footage, it can also give a sense of achievement and effort in what was required to get that footage. Similarly for the presenter; seeing how a expert person with such personal experience and connection with the land talk about and interact with animals - its engaging and gives a sense of learning and excitement.

When watching an artificial video of this kind, it can perhaps trigger that same kind of enjoyment - but its empty of value. The presenter is not connected to the land or an expert. They don’t exist at all. And the video is not showing evidence of how the animals behave or look; but rather just an AI’s impression of it. It certainly didn’t take any significant effort to record - because it wasn’t recorded at all! So although it can trigger a similar sense of value in our brains, we’re not actually getting what we feel like we’re getting. It’s empty calories so to speak. And its realism is entirely dependent real footage taken by real people who actually did the work. The AI generated version is easy and cheap to create, but the actual source data that it relies on is not. I suppose that’s part of the ‘theft’ that Lenore Taylor @ The Guardian is talking about; but I have one more thing I want to draw attention to.

At best it is empty entertainment, but it can also give a warped and misleading view of the things we’re supposedly learning about. It can also result in general apathy and disconnection. We see this realistic and engaging footage, but we know it is fake - and therefore of little importance or value. But it does look real, so it kind of makes everything else seem fake and of little value too. Any quirks or differences in other things we see start to be doubted or questioned. Images and experiences that use to be amazing and inspiring, and now just flat - because a general sense of doubt and indifference. The things people say, the way their talk, their passion - all under doubt. It may cause a kind of death of inspiration for some people exposed to it.

The propagation of artificial videos outpaces our social, legal, financial, and psychological systems for handing them. Probably we’d all do a bit better if this stuff wasn’t being turbo charged by ultra-wealth companies and individuals. (Yes, as usual, I’m blaming wealth inequality.)

Well, like I said, it’s subtle. So I hope I was about to convey my thoughts clearly enough that someone sees what I’m getting at!

deleted by creator

Here is their statement on their website.

Check this out:

We also apologise to Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah for how the decision was represented […]

They’re doing one of those classic bullshit non-apologies. “Sorry you misunderstood” rather than admitting fault. They completely fucked it up, and now even while cancelling the event they cannot bring themselves to take responsibility for it. That’s low.

I don’t think Trump is going to ask us to join a war. The idea of Australia will not even enter his mind unless it is directly relevant. For example he will probably think of Australia if he is intending to invade Australia; but aside from that, it would be up to his advisers to remind him that we exist.

For many years, Australia’s main defence strategy has basically been to maintain an alliance with the USA, to discourage any unpredictable would-be attackers. But it seems now that the USA itself is becoming unpredictable, and certainly unreliable. They are suddenly just as likely to invade an ‘ally’ themselves rather than defend them.

“You don’t need always to send tanks or artillery through the border to occupy territory. But you can really terrorise neighbouring countries or countries further away with drones, disturbing strategic infrastructure and how it can operate or not operate.”

I guess that doesn’t work as well vs Australia, because we don’t have any land neighbours who can push in after a drone assault. Probably our most powerful defensive strength now is that we’re someone isolated. Lucky us, I guess.

Thanks, WhirlpoolBrewer.

You’re a liar. No one is that influenced.

There are a lot of people in the world. Some feel passionately enough about certain topics to write long lemmy posts. And it doesn’t stop there. Some people actually physically do stuff in the real world too! So if you think typing a few paragraphs of text is too much effort for any real person, then I suggest you try to broaden your social circle.

“I would be naive to get up here and tell you that we’re not in conflict in the cyber domain now,” Coyle said. “Our ships will not sail, our planes will not fly, and our missiles will miss targets if we don’t get the cyber domain right.”

And yet apparently Australia hasn’t made even the slightly hint of an effort towards digital sovereignty.

Yeah. The idea that tracking should require explicit consent sounds pretty good at first, but we now the result is that users are constantly nagged and harassed and annoyed until they finally “consent” - at which point everything becomes silky smooth.

So yeah, I agree that this kind of thing should be simply banned, to remove any inconvenience or confusion from the whole thing.

If it was illegal, there would not be a higher price vs a lower price at any particular store; there would only be the one price. And obviously all prices change over time for all sorts of reasons. So it doesn’t really make sense to say “everyone pays the higher price”. Higher than what?

Maybe it’s a bit unfair to say ‘part of the problem’. But yeah, it isn’t really helping.

Yeah, Australia has that law. However, in recently years it has started to erode a little.

Cashless one-tap card payments have become very popular, because they were fast and no cost. Pretty convenient… except that more recently there are now transaction fees associated with them, and the fees vary from place to place. … So when it comes time to pay, often the price is a couple of percent higher than quoted. It isn’t much, but it is does make it harder to know what you’re actually going to pay. And it also feels like a bait-and-switch, since it built popularity by being free and now starts to increase nickle-and-dime people.

Anyway, that’s all minor small-fry stuff compared to the tax-excluding price bullshit in the USA.

Yeah. I also use Bottles for GOG / itch games that don’t have a native linux version. And I’m pretty happy with how it works. Things install smoothly and easily, and it has a very nice menu for the games I’ve installed. Here’s what it looks like:

However, there have been some hiccups along the way that might have caused less patient people to give up. In particular, it took me awhile to work out that although I could tell bottle to launch a windows .exe from anywhere on my computer, it would only actually work properly if I first move the exe into the virtual drive - which deep inside a confusing directory structure. (The “troubleshooting” menu option goes directly into talking about this issue; but even finding that menu option isn’t totally straight forward, especially if you’re just launching the exe from a file browser or something.)

Anyway, the upshot is that I like bottles; because it is easy to use but also very transparent about how it works and what it is doing, which I like. But I wouldn’t say it’s the best option for everyone.

I bought some potatoes and other vegetables at a supermarket today. I didn’t use any kind of bag for any of them. I put them straight from the shelf into the shopping basket, then from the shopping basket into my backpack with everything else. I reckon that’s a good way to do it.

Firefox does have ads on by default for the startpage, but they can be turned off in the settings in a fairly easy and obvious way. So even as obnoxious and demoralising ads, I don’t think it is fair to say these ones are “persistent and unavoidable”. (It’s not easy to remove the Firefox logo from the new tab page, and that annoys me, but I wouldn’t call it an ad.)

You may not like a feature, which is fine, but a lot of people do.

Sure. I agree with that. But I think you’re seeing this in reverse of the point I was trying to make. My point is that you might think this feature is mission critical, but a lot of people do not. The purpose of my previous post was to imply that you are over-emphasising its importance.

I understand that you personally want a fancy clipboard with lots of features; but for me, I actually explicitly deliberately only want a single item clipboard. I want the predictable simple certainty of what is and what is not stored in the clipboard. And if I ever had a multi-item clipboard with a UI interface, I’d be calling that confusing bloatware and looking for how to delete it.

So I don’t think we should rank each OS by how fancy its clipboard is.

In which case average Joe needs people like us to push back against coercive bullshit so that it doesn’t become entrenched.

Yeah, perhaps feeding is not the best choice of word here. But I’d suggest this is not a good context to challenge that choice of word, because it kind of muddies the waters of what is being discussed. Like, are you trying to say that the neighbours actually didn’t do a good thing, and then make a comment about socialism based on that? Probably that’s not what you mean; but like I said, it muddies the waters.

I’m never really sure if I should be using /mnt, or /media, or neither, or both.

That’s just one of many things that I find a bit confusing about the main linux directories. Windows has many directory oddities too though. I guess that tends to happen when an old OS walks the fine line of maintaining backwards compatibility and conventions while expectations, needs, and best-practices gradually change over time.