Homo Sapiens, Nerd Edition

"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money. Take radiology: there's some evidence that AIs can sometimes identify solid-mass tumors that some radiologists miss, and look, I've got cancer. Thankfully, it's very treatable, but I've got an interest in radiology being as reliable and accurate as possible. If my Kaiser hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: "Hey folks, here's the deal. Today, you're processing about 100 x-rays per day. From now on, we're going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you've missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you're only processing 98 x-rays per day. That's fine, we just care about finding all those tumors." If that's what they said, I'd be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market's bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: "Look, you fire 9/10s of your radiologists, saving $20m/year, you give us $10m/year, and you net $10m/year, and the remaining radiologists' job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed, and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it's catastrophically wrong. "And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist's fault, because they are the 'human in the loop.' It's their signature on the diagnosis." This is a reverse centaur, and it's a specific kind of reverse-centaur: it's what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink." The radiologist's job isn't really to oversee the AI's work, it's to take the blame for the AI's mistakes. This is another key to understanding – and thus deflating – the AI bubble. The AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. This is key because it helps us build the kinds of coalitions that will be successful in the fight against the AI bubble." - Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI

I’m glad that Indiana finally has its first national park and that it’s the one mostly known for having sand dunes that eat children.

how, pray tell, does a dune eat A Child

Did that really need to be in second person and fuck me up like that? No. But I’m not mad.

and no im not blaming queer people for our own lack of representation, or when "representation" exists only to mock us and shame us. I am however saying: stop attacking queer creators for making queer characters who are nuanced and complicated and even ugly or cruel. theyre not reflecting you, their character isnt you. its just their character

if i was a popular minecraft youtuber id just tweet "hey guys stop drawing shipping fanart of me and my friends/coworkers, i only fucked one of them and seeing me paired with anyone else is kinda weird and crosses my boundaries" and then i'd turn my phone off

Listen, fellow trans women, I love you all, but if you think that trans men or transmascs are an oppressor class you need to log the fuck off because you are being brainpoisoned by discourse-mongers. That is a legitimately rocks for brains take

"i ate too many cookies" is truly an ageless problem. an unlearnable lesson.

ok google how do i propose deeper friendship and intimacy to my mutuals without feeling like a pervert predator

hey. can we DM? do you want a voice message? do you want to see a picture of my face? do you wanna call? do you wanna get off on call with me? do you wanna consider us friends? do you wanna share secrets? do you wanna hint vaguely at where we both live to gauge how far we are from each other? do you wanna meet? do you wanna hang out? do you wanna fuck? do you wanna hold hands and kiss? does this make me creepy? is this too far? do you wanna kill me. i'm really sorry

Shout out to the phrase “I’m going to become the joker” for capturing a very specific and real emotion

"terminally ill people should be allowed to choose to die if they feel it is the best decision for them" and "euthanasia can easily become eugenics" and "we should provide support for depressed and suicidal people" are statements that can come into conflict but should all be respected

also “offering euthanasia to people who can’t afford actual treatment is murder”