Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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@scottjenson @thibaultamartin I have to admit, I’m quite tired of social media. I made an account when MySpace was popular ca. 2005? I’ve been online in one way or another ever since.
The most valuable things online for me were YouTube starting in 2006 and early day Podcasts, which I downloaded to my iPod starting in 2004. On third place, and with considerable margin are blogs (I wrote one 2006 – 2010, I’m back at it since 2022).
No medium moving faster than blogs has truly benefited me much.
@scottjenson @thibaultamartin I often feel like the time I spent on social media is wasted, because it doesn’t lead to anything.
Worse, actually, instead of building something lasting, I spend time on socials. It’s extremely hard to resist, but I’m working on a blog system easier to post to than to socials.
What really irks me is that here in Germany, basically all events, from protests to breakfast with friends, is organised via Instagram or WhatsApp.
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@evan @panos @carnage4life @scottjenson I do not concede that LLMs are "orders of magnitude" less harmful than flying. Also I do not fly.
Anyone dismissing LLM harms doesn't understand the scale of the climate crisis or of LLMs. Sadly, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” I can't force this understanding onto anyone in a few toots, they would have to want to understand, when the industry requires LLMs if you want to eat.
@skyfaller@jawns.club I believe that (further) ecological descruction is sadly unavoidable under capitalism. No matter how more ecologically some of us try to live, those who profit from this will only see any climate gains from our behavior as a chance to do even more damage on their own. I don't mean that this means that everything is acceptable, I also do what I can from other aspects, I just don't believe that I am responsible for the climate crisis and that I/we could avert it, sorry, you can't guilt trip me into this, that's victim blaming and thanks but no. @evan@cosocial.ca @carnage4life@mas.to @scottjenson@social.coop
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@rakoo oh FFS put your pitchfork down. You're creating a strawman and claiming it's me. I'm not equating the two! I'm saying "intellectual purity" tests cut both ways. If you're willing to slam all "AI people" as techbros influencers and want to kick them out, that can slide into any other topic or group.
My goal was to say inclusivity is hard, *especially* when it concerns groups that aren't marginalized. But not caring about these people makes it even easier to then affect marginalized peope.
I'm bringing this topic up BECAUSE black twitter was chased off this platform in 2022 and I'm really pissed that we haven't learned our lesson, we're still chasing people off (even if they aren't marginalized)
@scottjenson The reasons black people were rejected are _not_ the same reasons techbros are being rejected. You need to learn about what racism is: it's not a lack of inclusivity or being closed to different opinions, it's the structure we are all swimming in that is racist and needs to be worked on. It's the black people saying "please don't make it hard for us" and not listening to them. The women saying "replyguys are annoying" and not giving them an infrastructure that works for them by default. The work is on acknowledging the structure we're in, the actions we do that keep it in motion.
You're approaching this as a simple intellectual dissensus, a divergence in opinions, when it just isn't.
Groups that aren't marginalized don't matter. Society gives them all the tools, comfort and mindspace to take care of what they want to do. Focusing on them only enforces the marginalization of others. Instead, focusing on the marginalized and their needs help reduce disparities for everyone instead.
Non-marginalized people didn't leave because they were suffering yet again the same marginalization they endure everywhere else; they leave because they don't find what they want. Which is fine. -
@Aurimas One part is not different: knowing how and from which data were these model trained. Claiming "it's fine it's a local ML model" is far from making the solution an ethical one.
@fabrice hence the need for precise terms
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@scottjenson The reasons black people were rejected are _not_ the same reasons techbros are being rejected. You need to learn about what racism is: it's not a lack of inclusivity or being closed to different opinions, it's the structure we are all swimming in that is racist and needs to be worked on. It's the black people saying "please don't make it hard for us" and not listening to them. The women saying "replyguys are annoying" and not giving them an infrastructure that works for them by default. The work is on acknowledging the structure we're in, the actions we do that keep it in motion.
You're approaching this as a simple intellectual dissensus, a divergence in opinions, when it just isn't.
Groups that aren't marginalized don't matter. Society gives them all the tools, comfort and mindspace to take care of what they want to do. Focusing on them only enforces the marginalization of others. Instead, focusing on the marginalized and their needs help reduce disparities for everyone instead.
Non-marginalized people didn't leave because they were suffering yet again the same marginalization they endure everywhere else; they leave because they don't find what they want. Which is fine.@rakoo That was an amazing answer. Thank you.
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@evan @scottjenson @carnage4life I agree. I would rather talk about how we can improve LLMs and their applications than post anti-AI memes and shame people who use LLMs.
For example, let's use more voluntary training data, let's make smaller, more efficient models, let's do more quality control with the output, let's protect authors and artists from having their work stolen, let's not over-rely on LLMs or use them for things they are bad at. These are actionable steps we can take to improve the world with LLMs in it.
I do not believe that the "LLMs are categorically evil" approach is going to have any good results. The genie is out of the bottle, people find this technology very useful in certain ways. We might as well try to reduce the harms and improve the outcomes of using LLMs rather than chase after a cultural or legal prohibition which will never really be effective.
@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
One thing we don't talk about, when we talk about AI, is that, for hackers, AI-assisted software development threatens our livelihoods and lifestyle. It undermines the special position that we hold in the social and economic order.
No amount of lowering power consumption, careful training data provenance, or decentralised deployment will help with that.
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@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
One thing we don't talk about, when we talk about AI, is that, for hackers, AI-assisted software development threatens our livelihoods and lifestyle. It undermines the special position that we hold in the social and economic order.
No amount of lowering power consumption, careful training data provenance, or decentralised deployment will help with that.
@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
It would be interesting to have the discussion of how, if we don't manage to abolish all LLM-assisted software development entirely, we can maintain hacker culture and a positive influence on the world's use of technology.
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@scottjenson @Gargron “AI people” are not a protected class. It seems much more important that we focus on being a welcoming and inclusive platform for protected classes, particularly actual marginalized communities.
@dgodon @scottjenson @Gargron consider though that there are people in marginalized communities who are also "AI people". are they not welcome? is anti-AI (or anti-whatever) more important than welcoming marginalized people? literally, where is the line?
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@evan @panos @carnage4life @scottjenson I do not concede that LLMs are "orders of magnitude" less harmful than flying. Also I do not fly.
Anyone dismissing LLM harms doesn't understand the scale of the climate crisis or of LLMs. Sadly, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” I can't force this understanding onto anyone in a few toots, they would have to want to understand, when the industry requires LLMs if you want to eat.
@skyfaller My work has been up until recently building software to make greenhouse gas inventories. I am well aware of the causes of the climate crisis, and I can tell you categorically that AI is not a significant one. You've already seen my math on the topic, but I can share the links again if you need them.
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@evan @scottjenson @carnage4life sure, let’s take steps to prevent abuse and make this a more welcoming and inclusive space, but let’s stop pretending that “AI users” are a marginalized community. It’s like arguing that cops or Republicans are a protected class. Center actual marginalized groups in these discussions! If they feel welcome then there’s a better chance non-hype AI users will too
@dgodon your argument is, i guess, that there are no members of marginalized communities who are "AI users"? or is it that it doesn't matter because your being against AI and their using AI is more important than anything else about who they are?
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@rakoo That was an amazing answer. Thank you.
@scottjenson you might not be the stereotypical pro-white pro-cis man, but the focus of your attention and the way you approach systemic issues might put forward those people: we can't naively say "I'm clean", we're all a part of this because we've all been in there for so long. I think the very first move is to listen to what marginalized people have been saying for ages and start from there. There is no need for yet another discussion, as if the topic was new or still too vague. Recognizing marginalized people, considering them as equals whose voice and expertise should guide us, this is where we must start -
@skyfaller My work has been up until recently building software to make greenhouse gas inventories. I am well aware of the causes of the climate crisis, and I can tell you categorically that AI is not a significant one. You've already seen my math on the topic, but I can share the links again if you need them.
@skyfaller AI is projected to rise to as much as 1/3 of all IT emissions by 2030, so about 0.3% of global emissions. Air travel is about 3.5% of global emissions. That's an order of magnitude.
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@skyfaller AI is projected to rise to as much as 1/3 of all IT emissions by 2030, so about 0.3% of global emissions. Air travel is about 3.5% of global emissions. That's an order of magnitude.
@skyfaller for individuals, an hour of flight can emit about 1kg CO2. An hour of LLM use on a dirty grid emits 0.01kg of CO2.
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@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
It would be interesting to have the discussion of how, if we don't manage to abolish all LLM-assisted software development entirely, we can maintain hacker culture and a positive influence on the world's use of technology.
@evan @scottjenson @carnage4life I would argue that the history of technology is defined by working with increasing levels of abstraction. First you were plugging in wires, then you had simple instruction sets, then low level languages, then high level languages, and now we can use natural language to write software. Every time this happened, we found new sources of inspiration and made cool and useful new things. I see LLMs as part of that story and not fundamentally different. In my opinion, hackers are ultimately people who trade in ideas, the technology is more the means to actualize the ideas. If you get too attached to specific technologies you'll have a problem when the world changes and the focus shifts to new technologies. So I see the cultural side of the issue as something that people can potentially adapt to.
That said, yes LLMs being pushed by capitalist entities are definitely reducing the economic value of information-based labor. But that's unfortunately also the latest iteration of a long story of industrialization and automation. I believe we should fight against the devaluation of labor by capitalists, but I think that we should be more focused on policy than technology in that fight.
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
"AI" LLMs have no benefit for the mass of normal people. They can't be replied upon, aren't intelligent, are killing the planet, have risen the cost of living and hobbies for everyone and are being used by billionaire narcissists to spread propaganda and kill real free speech and muddy facts. There is no room for commercial LLMs anywhere. They are only useful for research projects like cancer research etc.
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life mastodon is not definitively not the same to all of us.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson What does "AI journalist" mean to you?
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson my feed is created by me. I follow people and topics. I either don't follow, quite or block does I don't want to follow. There's not risk of polluting my feed.
As I see it, Mastodon is mostly composed of marginalized communities. Can it, and should it have even more? Sure!
People don't have to like AI and engage with people who like AI, or with that topic, for people who like AI to be here, the same goes to any other topic.
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@evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI Mastodon as a community is quite hostile to AI and anything that isn’t a criticism of AI is viewed with skepticism at best and typically with hostility as the default.
It’s unfortunate because, as in your Mozilla example, there is still time to shape how AI is used in our industry. It’s better to engage and try to influence it versus stick your head in the sand and have the change thrusted upon you.
@carnage4life @evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI
.... as a community, ....Can we pause for a second. Why do we automatically lump people with different thoughts, perspectives into one group?
When you talk to AI-one-shotted person, check if they are also more suseptible to this shortcutting simplification human bias. It may be one of the factors.
There are tons of different not-pleasant-to-AI-fanatics perspectives in this federated space. "Community" brush stroke erases nuances. Please, don't.
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@scottjenson my feed is created by me. I follow people and topics. I either don't follow, quite or block does I don't want to follow. There's not risk of polluting my feed.
As I see it, Mastodon is mostly composed of marginalized communities. Can it, and should it have even more? Sure!
People don't have to like AI and engage with people who like AI, or with that topic, for people who like AI to be here, the same goes to any other topic.
@scottjenson
Liking AI, and being black is not the same, to me mixing those two things is inappropriate.
