Rynling R&D

( Read more... )

I mean listen, I'm not wrong.

( Read more... )

The truth is that, if you really want to support queer creative communities, you're going to have to acknowledge that these communities are making art that might not fit neatly into mainstream commercial marketing categories. And their work is so much better and more interesting for this, honestly.

Large Language Muddle
https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the-intellectual-situation/large-language-muddle/

But a still graver scandal of AI — like its hydra-head sibling, cryptocurrency — is the technology’s colossal wastefulness. The untold billions firehosed by investors into its development; the water-guzzling data centers draining the parched exurbs of Phoenix and Dallas; the yeti-size carbon footprint of the sector as a whole — and for what? A cankerous glut of racist memes and cardboard essays. Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.

We're now a month into the semester, and I'm working my way through my classes' first batch of reading responses. It's impossible to exaggerate how obvious the computer-generated essays are. How obvious, and how insulting.

( Read more... )

So, to me, this essay isn't wrong, necessarily, but it demonstrates an onanistic obsession with intellectual privilege that runs counter to its stated goal of resisting the encroachment of LLMs into public discourse. As the market for writing shrinks due to lack of funding, building even higher walls around "the literary community" isn't effective praxis.

I finally finished a stupid two-panel comic (this one here) about my fantasy of taking direct action against oligarchs. The no-minimum tariffs bullshit absolutely wrecking the small businesses of indie artists was the straw that broke my back.

( Read more... )

But also, listen. In actual reality, hammers.

Just to get it off my chest: ecofascism is the idea that (a) environmental change is inevitable; (b) only “strong” people will survive the resulting disasters, and (c) this is how it should be. To give an example: It’s okay that people in Texas die during extreme heat events, because if they weren’t poor (and therefore without value as human beings) they would have AC or live somewhere else. Americans often like to give examples in other countries (generally in South Asia, and generally in relation to flooding, mainly in Bangladesh and Pakistan), but climate-related catastrophes definitely happen in the United States.

( Read more... )

Just for shits and giggles (and also inspired by the brilliant fanwork of a friend), I decided to write a few quick stories about Tenna, the villain (sort of) of the recently released Chapter 3 of Deltarune. I thought the idea of shipping him with Spamton, the villain (definitely) of Chapter 2 was funny for a hot second before actually becoming intrigued by the dynamic. What if they were both awful and made each other worse, that sort of thing.

The problem I had initially was how to write Tenna, who we only ever see speaking to an audience. How would his voice translate to a more intimate situation? To get a sense of fandom tastes, I pulled up fic for the ship on AO3 as sorted by the number of bookmarks, which I hoped would filter out most of the slop.

But alas. There is. A whole lot of slop. Very clearly written by GenAI. And people love it. Apparently.

I don't understand this at all. These stories all follow the same beats and use the same vocabulary, and the characters don't speak in their distinctive voices. There's no attempt to engage with the story or lore of the original game, and there's no specificity at all. Why would so many people bookmark fic like this?

Meanwhile, my university has been aggressively integrating GenAI into its software licenses and digital infrastructure, which has been causing huge problems for everyone. To give an example, many incoming students from East Asia or with East Asian heritage can't upload their photos to their university profiles because the software flags them for using AI-generated images. Because all Asians look fake to the algorithm I guess?? At the same time, the East Asian language teachers have been asking the university to pay for licenses for region-specific GenAI tools that might potentially make huge advances in language learning, but the university (which has more money than God) has been ignoring them. Because why would a university want to use GenAI for actual education and pedagogical innovation amirite.

TLDR: This is dystopian and I hate it.

I am of two minds about this Tumblr post:

( Read more... )

On one hand, I harbor an immense dislike of generative AI, and it fills my heart with joy to see such large numbers of people treating it with absolute disdain. On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of online virtue signaling, and this example is a little silly.

( Read more... )

I should say that I'm not calling out anyone, obviously! I'm taking shots at targets on a straw man here to try to articulate a broader argument, but also. I hope this Tumblr post gets a million notes by the end of the week.

In the past, I’ve gotten frustrated with Gen Z kids for being creepy little fascists on TikTok, but Bluesky is making me annoyed with Millennials for being super fucking lame.

( Read more... )

Still, when I think about how it would be possible to gain hundreds of followers by posting milk-white political opinions generated by an LLM, I’m tempted... but it makes me so tired.

I'm not saying that a Pokémon fan artist who doesn't want to get DMs with creepy commission requests is as bad as Elon Musk. Obviously. Still, I do believe it's significant that both of these groups are directing their political energy into a fantasy.

( Read more... )

This should go without saying, but "protecting children" has nothing to do with conspiracy theories about politicians injecting themselves with adrenochrome harvested from orphans; nor does it have anything to do with the stories people post about magical space wizards on AO3 dot org. People can (and should) believe whatever sort of weird nonsense they want, but problems arise when significant demographic groups become convinced that their political power lies entirely in controlling what they see in the media they consume.

There's more to say, but the headspace is too depressing for me to handle right now.

Why exactly do you dislike generative art so much?
https://were--ralph.tumblr.com/post/737973707149017088/why-exactly-do-you-dislike-generative-art-so-much

There is genuinely not one upside to ai art. at all. it’s theft, it’s harming peoples lives, its harming the environment, its cutting jobs back and hurting the economy, it’s invading peoples privacy, its making pedophilia accessible, and more. it’s a plague and there’s no vaccine for it. And all because people don’t want to take a year to learn anatomy.

I finally found this post again. It's good, and I especially appreciate the examples. If you're not already familiar with Were-Ralph on Tumblr dot com, you're in for a treat. I am unironically in love with this man.

I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/

The crux of my raging hatred is not that I hate LLMs or the generative AI craze. I had my fun with Copilot before I decided that it was making me stupider - it's impressive, but not actually suitable for anything more than churning out boilerplate. Nothing wrong with that, but it did not end up being the crazy productivity booster that I thought it would be.

Same. I had my fun with ChatGPT before deciding it's functionally useless.

An executive at an institution that provides students with important credentials, used to verify suitability for potentially lifesaving work and immigration law, asked me if I could detect students cheating. I was going to say "No, probably not"... but I had a suspicion, so I instead said "I might be able to, but I'd estimate that upwards of 50% of the students are currently cheating which would have some serious impacts on the bottom line as we'd have to suspend them. Should I still investigate?" We haven't spoken about it since.

This is where I'm at right now. I have regressed to assigning handwritten quizzes and live in-class presentations, because well upwards of 50% (and probably close to 80%) of students will automatically default to using ChatGPT even when explicitly warned not to. And there's nothing to stop them, because none of us has the energy or time on this earth to hold them accountable. Most universities are already failing financially, and they're just going to kick students out for cheating? Not happening. It sucks and I hate it.