Solar Sarah

To the other countries of the world…begin lobbying your leaders…NOW….to skip the 2028 Olympics in the United States.

Is it a rule written on some ancient Temple that every year we must sacrifice a millionaire to some orcas or to the Titanic or to an African bull or to luigi or something.

Please don't use AI
It's so damaging, to the environment and to creators. How disappointing :-(

WHAT IS GENERATIVE AI? Gen AI is a technology that works by analyzing a datacenter of collected material (Frequently included without permission of the creators of said materials) and generating new content based on said material as directed by a provided prompt. WHY IS GEN AI, AS IT EXISTS NOW, BAD? There are a variety of ethical and environmental problems that are interwoven with Gen AI as it exists and is being implemented by corporations today. FIRSTLY As previously stated, most Gen AI models and systems use a collection of materials that have been collected without the permission of those who created said materials. This leads to situations of outright plagiarism like what was recently seen with OpenAI’s Studio Ghibli module which was then used by entities like the United States White House Social Media team to push messages that completely contradict the messages and themes deeply tied to Studio Ghibli’s collective work. Big name studios are not the only ones at risk, as independent creative workers (Artists, actors, writers, etc.) are all at risk of being targeted, and many already have, and lack the financial or political resources to hold corporations that steal from them accountable. SECONDLY - Creative workers are having their carriers directly threatened by corporations seeking to use Gen AI to replace them, resulting in layoffs. As an example, Dulingo (Yes, the Owl Language App) laid off all their human translators in favor of using Gen AI translators. THIRDLY Gen AI has an extremely high demand for resources and energy that is disastrous both to the environment and the communities where said resources are mined. It consumes a vast amount of energy, with a lot of that energy coming from greenhouse gas producing sources like coal. A large amount of water is also needed to cool the servers needed to run Gen AI technology. It is costly, but even if/when those costs go down, the devastating impacts remain and likely only worsen as Gen AI use spreads.

WHAT CAN WE DO? The simple answer is to show solidarity towards creative workers and all those effected by Gen AI by refusing to use or engage with it whenever it is realistically possible. We also can fight back and protect workers by pressuring elected representatives to take action by creating and instituting laws and regulations that protect workers and enpower creatives, both independant and working under corporate umbrellas to protect their work from being stolen and misused. In the meanwhile we can also use Unions to organize protests and collective movements to pressure employers to agree to protective agreements that keep creative workers employed. This does sometimes mean needing to organize and raise funds to help workers through strikes and give everyone the time and resources needed to collectively bargain protections, but these actions protect ALL OF US in the end. WHAT ARE EXAMPLES OF AVOIDABLE GEN AI USE? Do you need, or would like, a piece of art work created for commercial or personal use? Hire a human artist. Do you have a project that requires acting, either voiced or otherwise? Hire a human actor. Do you need help writing or translating something? Hire a human writer or translator. Do you lack the funds to offer financial compensation for creative work? Put out a general request online and shop around for help. As long as you are respectful and reasonable with your request, you can generally find someone willing to offer you their services, either for alternative compensation or even completely free. (Just be sure to credit them for their work!)

GEN AI DEMOCRATIZES ART/ WE CAN DEMOCRATIZE IT! No, it does not, and no we can not. Firstly anyone can already create art. In fact, the fields of carriers found within creative work are amoung leading positions avalible to disabled people, including the neurodiverse. A lot of these people are under direct risk of not only losing their jobs, but being put in a position where their disability, combined with their unemployment puts them at direct risk of losing their, independence and hopes of living self-sufficiently. Unemployment rates are measurably higher for disabled workers, and with many unable to learn new skills without extreme difficulty, this situation has the potential to ruin lives. But even ignoring this, the idea of “democratizing” Gen AI ignores how it works. The servers that run and produce Gen AI are all corporate owned. Executives and Billionaires are the ones with direct control, and they have direct control over what Gen AI can or can not produce. This means trying to weaponize it against them is doomed to failure, as those in control have the power to institute filters to prevent undesirable production and also have the ability to monitor everything generated, and who commissioned each generative piece. This would extend to trying to utilize “private” servers or any other means of circumventing corporate control. While the creation of publicly owned Gen AI servers is technically possible, these too would still ultimately be under government control and fall under the same problems of administrative control and monitoring, and this is ignoring all the problems that would come from funding and providing resources to such an effort that could, instead, be used to provide necessities like food, shelter, and health care.

IS THERE ANY POTENTIAL FOR GEN AI TO BE USED FOR GOOD? As it currently exists and is being implemented now? No. The environmental impact is far too great, and the continued threat to creative workers needs to be addressed and handled first and foremost. Perhaps once proper regulations and rules are in place that restrict and lay out what Gen AI can and can not be used for, using it to create tools that could be genuinely useful to creative workers can be explored. Unfortunately this was not how the corporations and companies that created Gen AI chose to develop these technologies. They were working, instead, for companies simply seeking to maximize profits by cutting down labor costs. Ironically, the high cost of powering and maintaining these systems are a huge part of why they are unlikely to be sustainable for the long term. YOU ARE JUST BEING EMOTIONAL! Speaking as a creative worker myself (And a disabled/Autistic one at that), yes, I do have a vested interest in this cause and a reason to both hold my ground and expect others to do the same. However, it is factually wrong, and a straight up fallacy, to imply that the arguments of myself, and other creative workers being directly affected by this situation, are not logical simply because of this investment. In fact, it is a straight up fallacy! It is also deeply disrespectful and insulting. Many of us have years of experience working in our specific fields and have direct knowledge over how things work. I do not believe asking for solidarity, and to be listened to, is too much.

I've grown tired of having the same argument with people defending or excusing Gen AI, so I compiled it all into a multi-page flyer to deploy as needed. If anyone else wishes to use these, please feel free.

Purposefully made these to be easily printable, too, if anyone desires.

The very opposite of Punk.

Are right wing fascist regimes ok?
because it just gets weirder every day!

On today's episode of "What inanimate object are women being compared to.."

i want more of this
direct into my veins!
renewables needs to hire more motherfucking cool people to promote our work because the fossils are pumping money at anti net zero and climate sceptic shite.

and nobody under boomer age can afford a house with a space to gather or time off from their 3rd job to meet up with anyone anywhere. Capitalism and inequality have consequences :-(

loneliness epidemic is not a gender problem
its a lack of third spaces problem
there is no where to go that isn't $$ and nobody under boomer age owns houses

The Richter scale for #earthquake intensity is logarithmic. A one-point increase (i.e., from 7.0 to 8.0) represents nearly 32 times more energy released (and about 10 times stronger wavelengths). So the jump from M8.0 to M8.8 was ENORMOUS. This is in rare territory. #tsunami

Tsunami advisory issued for several parts of the B.C. coast after major earthquake near Russia | CBC News A tsunami watch has been issued for multiple parts of the B.C. coast after a large earthquake in the Pacific basin near Kamchatka, Russia, on Tuesday afternoon.

Please share as wide as possible, don’t just ‘like’ this message. Lives depend on making sure as many get this as possible. #Tsunami #Pacific #Earthquake #DemVoice1 www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

that is so cool and i did not know that at all!
i imagine that means local coastal infrastructure is not built to cope with tidal changes at all though!

A rule of thumb for tsunamis is that in open ocean, they move at similar speeds to commercial airliners. If you're ever curious how long it would take for a tsunami to get from one place to another, look up the duration of a similar-length flight.

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The thing about the Epstein disgustingness that strikes me hardest is that hundreds of rich old men raped underage girls and the only person currently in jail for that vile behavior is a woman.

McDonald’s pulls AI ordering from drive-thrus — for now | CNN Business McDonald’s is pulling the plug on an AI-powered voice automated ordering technology it was testing at more than 100 restaurant drive-thru systems in the US, bringing into question the rapid rollout of...

If we can't trust AI to order a burger then why the hell do we think it should be trusted with higher decisions, why are governments thinking AI should be in the classroom and why the F do people i work with keep uploading sensitive information to the AI chatbots? It's infuriating!

Dear @johncreedon.bsky.social beautiful moonrise here just now and the little owls are watching it too

you can't fake empathy and joy and caring for others
you either have it or you don't. Zohran clearly has it <3

Here’s the bottom line for what’s going on with Grok - if the owner of the website is putting his thumb on the scale hard enough for the chatbot to turn into Goebbels, you should be deeply concerned about what he’s doing to the algorithm that you can’t so easily see, and what it’s doing to you

If it took 8 days to build a massive concentration camp in Florida then it means they could build and house the homeless at any point but choose not to

Canicule en Europe : records de chaleur en Espagne, alertes et mesures d’urgence en Italie et au Portugal Face à la canicule, d’une intensité inédite, les villes du sud de l’Europe multiplient les initiatives pour protéger les plus vulnérables et limiter les conséquences sanitaires.

Nous. Ne. Sommes. Pas. Prêts.

Et ce n’est que le début.

Le réchauffement s’arrêtera que lorsqu’on cessera d’ajouter du CO2 dans l’atmosphère. Le reste c’est de la diversion pour ne rien changer.
Et que chacun s’habitue à ce qu’on meure littéralement de chaud.

www.lemonde.fr/planete/arti...

say it again! damn yes!

hairy baby t-shirts are irish and wonderful
www.hairybaby.com

crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their consultants

Louder for fools at the back who think ChatGPT is a search engine 🙄🙄

@johncreedon.bsky.social strolling the hot, hot sunset streets in Paris after work listening to Creedon of course