Are You Telling Me Americans Have Stores That Open Up SPECIFICALLY For Halloween And Just. Dont Exist

are you telling me americans have stores that open up SPECIFICALLY for halloween and just. dont exist any other time of the year. you people are insane

Anyone But Him

Hello Hello and welcome to this week’s six sentence story based on the word HATCH. Today I return to my serial six, the prism series, where we check back in with our girl from purple as she gives an update on how things have been proceeding for another point of view.  Make sure to go back to Part One if you haven’t read the rest of this! She watched the buy from blue being escorted through the…

NaNoWriMo official statement: We want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.

Translation: Disabled people and poor people can't write and they need the Theft Machines to actually be good writers, and disagreeing with us is means you're a fundamentally bad person.

Meanwhile, Ted Chiang: "Believing that inspiration outweighs everything else is, I suspect, a sign that someone is unfamiliar with the medium."

"Many novelists have had the experience of being approached by someone convinced that they have a great idea for a novel, which they are willing to share in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds. Such a person inadvertently reveals that they think formulating sentences is a nuisance rather than a fundamental part of storytelling in prose. Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art."

"The programmer Simon Willison has described the training for large language models as “money laundering for copyrighted data,” which I find a useful way to think about the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re copying."

"Is the world better off with more documents that have had minimal effort expended on them? ... Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?"

"The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world."

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I'm with Ted on this one. What the actual fuck, NaNoWriMo? Makes me wonder what the purpose behind the 'doublecheck your wordcount' box has been used for all these years, if not stealing for the Theft Machines.

Sources:

NaNo's original statement

NaNo's attempt at backtracking

Ted Chiang's New Yorker article (paywalled, but i hit refresh until it gave up)

Techcrunch article

“imagine caring so much about fiction” imagine being so lame that you scoff at the timeless human practice of falling in love with art and stories

Because I remember disinformation being spread around the last few elections and I’m sure assholes will bring it back:

YOU CAN’T VOTE ONLINE.

YOU CAN’T VOTE FROM YOUR PHONE.

IN MANY STATES THERE ARE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR BALLOT.

DO NOT WEAR CAMPAIGN GEAR TO THE POLLS.

DO NOT TRY TO PERSUADE PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE AT THE POLLS.

DO NOT ENGAGE IN ANY KIND OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE AT THE POLLS.

NO ELECTION IS EVER A SURE THING, EVEN IF YOU’RE IN THE BLUEST OR REDDEST OF STATES.  IF SOMEONE TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN SIT THIS ONE OUT, THEY ARE EITHER IGNORANT OR MALICIOUS.

VOTE.