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pluralistic

@pluralistic@mamot.fr

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
@doctorow.

Archived at pluralistic.net

I post long threads. If you don't like these in your timeline but want to read them, I suggest unfollowing me here and subscribing to my RSS, or my newsletter, or any of my various long-form feeds. Links at https://pluralistic.net.

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pluralistic , to Random stuff
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Pining for the fjords

pluralistic OP ,
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@poppis Sometime! It's been a couple decades since my last Aula gig.

pluralistic OP ,
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@poppis ask a Finnish publisher!

pluralistic , to Random stuff
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Subreddit

pluralistic , to Random stuff
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Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Algorithmic feeds are a twiddler's playground; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/11/for-you/

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A complex control panel whose knobs have all been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' A skeletal figure on one side of the image reaches out a bony finger to twiddle one of the knobs. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- djhughman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modular_synthesizer_-_%22Control_Voltage%22_electronic_music_shop_in_Portland_OR_-_School_Photos_PCC_%282015-05-23_12.43.01_by_djhughman%29.jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
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    • pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Next Tuesday (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI and enshittification with @timoreilly:

    https://www.oreilly.com/live-events/tim-oreilly-and-cory-doctorow-on-enshittification-and-the-future-of-ai/0642572001651/

    Wednesday (May 15), I'm in North Hollywood with Harry Shearer for a screening of Stephanie Kelton's Finding the Money:

    https://www.laemmle.com/film/finding-money?date=2024-05-15

    Friday (May 17), I'm in San Francisco at the @internetarchive to keynote the tenth anniversary of the @AuthorsAlliance:

    https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/03/15/authors-alliance-10th-anniversary-event-authorship-in-an-age-of-monopoly-and-moral-panics/

    2/

    pluralistic OP ,
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    @PRNE Thanks!

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    Like Oscar Wilde, "I can resist anything except temptation," and my slow and halting journey to adulthood is really just me grappling with this fact, getting temptation out of my way before I can yield to it.

    --

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/11/for-you/#the-algorithm-tm

    1/

    Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- djhughman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modular_synthesizer_-_%22Control_Voltage%22_electronic_music_shop_in_Portland_OR_-_School_Photos_PCC_%282015-05-23_12.43.01_by_djhughman%29.jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
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    • pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    The ruins at dusk

    The ruins of a medieval church, integrated into the University of Tartu museum, at dusk, surrounded by trees.
    The ruins of a medieval church, integrated into the University of Tartu museum, at dusk, surrounded by trees.

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    That doorman tho

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    Punisher blub blub

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    Experimental subject

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    Feetybones

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    Important qualifier

    clive , to Random stuff
    @clive@saturation.social avatar

    Another Boeing plane catches fire: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/09/defective-boeing-flight-catches-fire-hospitalizing-10-victims-on-board-video.html

    holy crap this company is unRAVeling

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @clive You are Boeing to die. We're all Boeing to die.

    gedankenstuecke , to Random stuff
    @gedankenstuecke@scholar.social avatar

    How AI can be an "online WMD" to wipe out the commons by @pluralistic: « the internet moved from self-governance by members of the commons to acts of wanton destruction committed by despicable, greedy assholes who shit in the well over and over again.»

    The example of copyleft trolls using Creative Commons to destroy the commons seems timely when CC itself keeps waiving the "AI is fair-use"-flag…

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @gedankenstuecke fair use is in no way limited to 'human scale activities,' and indeed, much machine scale conduct is firmly settled as fair, including compiling web scale indices for making search engines, creating a web scale archive of all online public materials, and mezzoscale uses like compiling corpuses for computational linguistics.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @gedankenstuecke also other mass corpus compilations, eg, ad observer's captures of Facebook ads, scraping LinkedIn to investigate racial bias in job postings, etc.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @gedankenstuecke I think the problem that people grapple with is the intuitive understanding that something wrong is going on here and a reflex to reach for copyright as the thing that has been violated. The reality is that all of the steps in training a model either are or could be very easily be made firmly fair use, and even if we banned scraping without permission all of our concerns about AI would remain.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @gedankenstuecke if Getty images wins its lawsuit against openai that won't stop them from making a model they can use to fire photographers and replace them with synthetic images. Getty already has a corpus of works that it could license for this purpose, and it is insatiably horny for firing as many photographers as possible and keeping the money for itself.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @gedankenstuecke We need to conceive of this as a labor issue not a copyright issue. Giving a creative worker more copyright when they already have no bargaining power with their employers is just a roundabout way of transferring that right from creative workers to large commercial interests. On the other hand if we think of this in terms of labor, unionization, fair contracting, etc then workers stand a chance.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke @ptesarik it's not a licensable activity. It's fair use. There is no attribution requirement, because it is not being carried out under the terms of the license.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke what about the large language model that hrdag.org uses with Innocence Project New Orleans to analyze police records for exoneration? That feels like pretty clear-cut public interest.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke or text to speech for people with print disabilities or team description tools for people with visual disabilities, or automatic classifiers for bibliographers and catalogers or..

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke once again, the issue with AI is a labor issue not a copyright issue and if you cannot solve it by finding a copyright argument. When the New Yor Times takes $50 million from Apple to train an llm and then tries to fire its writers and replace them with it, copyright will not help you or them.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke That's like saying every photocopier should bear the test of proportionality rather than the use of the photocopier. There is no such thing as an llm that is only used for exoneration. There is an llm, and it has been uses, and some of them may infringe and some do not, but you cannot test the llm for infringement any more than you could test an SSD or an ethernet interface.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke again, I repeat, you will not solve this with copyright. The privacy concerns with AI our privacy concerns, not copyright concerns. The labor concerns with AI are labor concerns not copyright concerns. The environmental problems with AI are environmental concerns not copyright concerns.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ptesarik @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke there is no such thing as a European copyright law, there is just the 2001 copyright directive and its transpositions into national law which have a lot of variability. I assure you as someone who has sold a lot of work to European publishers that it is possible for authors to retain their copyrights but nevertheless many creative industry firms have a mass a corpus of work that they have sufficient rights to to train an ai

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @hairylarry @gedankenstuecke @ptesarik https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112411320443125672

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
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    Today's threads (a thread)

    Inside: AI is a WMD; and more!

    Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/

    1/

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    I'm in Tartu, Estonia!

    TOMORROW (May 10): 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, "AI, copyright and creative workers’ labor rights"
    Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building (Lossi 3, lobby)

    TOMORROW (May 10): A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation
    University of Tartu Delta Centre (Narva 18, room 1037)

    2/

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":

    https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

    1/

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/#advon

    2/

    mishari , to Random stuff Thai
    @mishari@mastodon.in.th avatar

    @pluralistic May I make a request, can you please split your account into long form posts and one that just posts a link? It's either that, or I need to create another account just to follow you as your long form ones just overwhelm my feed

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @mishari

    Here's how to manage it

    https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

    You can also unfollow me here and get my articles by email, blog, RSS, or on a variety of other platforms.

    They're CC BY and there's fulltext RSS so you can write a program to ingest and republish them (including commercially) in a format of your choosing, as well.

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @mishari You need to read the linked essay I sent you earlier, which explains this all. Here it is again:

    https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

    GratianRiter , to Random stuff German
    @GratianRiter@bildung.social avatar

    Thank you @pluralistic ! Thank you very much! Especially for making me cry, sitting in my car, listening to "The Lost Cause" audio book on a regular basis.

    Please tell me, their will be a german Translation, so I can get it for all my nonenglish reading friends and make them cry as well.

    Seriously: It's deeply moving and we need a german edition asap! 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽

    pluralistic ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @GratianRiter I hope so! My German publisher has been very enthusiastic lately.

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Today's threads (a thread)

    Inside: The disenshittified internet starts with loyal "user agents"; and more!

    Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/

    1/

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    I'm in Tartu, Estonia!

    TOMORROW (May 8), 6PM: Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, "Overcoming the Enshittocene,"
    University of Tartu Library (Struwe 1)

    May 10: 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, "AI, copyright and creative workers’ labor rights"
    Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building (Lossi 3, lobby)

    May 10, 3PM: A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation
    (University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037)

    2/

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @col000r https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @col000r Thanks!

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    There's one overwhelmingly common mistake that people make about enshittification: assuming that the contagion is the result of the Great Forces of History, or that it is the inevitable end-point of any kind of for-profit online world.

    --

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

    1/

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Today's threads (a thread)

    Inside: Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election; and more!

    Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/

    1/

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    I'm in Tartu, Estonia!

    May 8, 6PM: Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, "Overcoming the Enshittocene,"
    University of Tartu Library (Struwe 1)

    May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, "AI, copyright and creative workers’ labor rights"
    Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building (Lossi 3, lobby)

    May 10, 3PM: A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation
    (University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037)

    2/

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.

    --

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove

    1/

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Well that's a hell of a chart

    https://www.ft.com/content/dc47c5f3-9bd4-4da0-a5cb-c795efd14c9c?accessToken=zwAGF77R-34okdPcR8Xzm9RNoNOly8eV79FMnA.MEUCIQDlzK8iKXqo2IyOBx3R95kEVglrA1-3Z4mV7SAgvpY71AIgFYrY0LX0A5YB_Wsm5EFBv08XfD1H5letjmzX-ZO_lw8&sharetype=gift&token=959a5d69-00b3-4117-b2cd-5231e1dccc9c

    via @jjn1

    https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-6-may-2024/39413/

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    If you listen to F1 on your phone cranked to max in public places (e.g. airports) you are a fucking war criminal and you are going to Hell for ten billion years when you die.

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @askDNA https://kagi.com/search?q=what+is+f1

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Cyberpunk trifecta

    Me with Bruce Sterling on the streets of Turin
    Me with Neal Stephenson at a bookstore in Seattle

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @timethief red team blue

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Has anyone managed to use the CCPA (or GDPR?) to force Mailchimp to cough up a list of all the mailing lists you've been nonconsensually added to?

    pluralistic OP ,
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    @ompaul Mine contains >1000 folders with several confusing spreadsheets, each. These have email address for list owners, but not the name of the lists that I'm on, so there's no way to

    a) Figure out which lists I want to unsub from and

    b) Unsub from those lists

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