Artificial Stupidity

Labor Conditions of Content Moderators (2021)

Inside AOL's "Cyber-Sweatshop" (1999)

Digital Labor and Imperialism (2016)

Amazon Mechanical Turk: The Digital Sweatshop (2012)

Gig Economy, Algorithmic Control, and Migrant Labor (2022)

The Rise of Cyber-Coolies (2003)

Ecological Impact of Computation and the Cloud (2022)

The Environmental Sustainability of Digital Content Consumption (2024)

Carbon Footprint of the Internet (2010)

“You mean you locked up a pack of curious, highly competitive persistence predators with NO enrichment in the enclosure? You FOOLS! If you had bothered to throw a basketball or half a box of Legos in there, KE-X9 would still be alive!

Like they’re totally unable to figure out what’s happening because the cameras keep going out, but every night things get moved, or stolen, exhibits are disappearing, WHAT IS GOING ON, they’ve moved facilities twice and it’s still happening, are they haunted, are the ancestors angry, WHAT IS HAPPENING!?

And then a weary humanologist is all ‘… your humans are getting out’. 

“That is impossible.” 

“They’re getting out.” 

“That enclosure is COMPLETELY SECURE.” 

“And yet somehow they’re getting out.” 

“THE HUMANS ARE NOT GETTING OUT.” 

“Oh yeah? I bet you twenty glarks they’re getting out. Stay after closing time with me and I’ll show you.” 

*next day*

“… the humans were getting out.” 

“… why did they keep going back in, then?!”

1 - at our own zoos the MOST notorious jail breakers are the orangutans, who exploit all manner of methods, including literal lock picking. One orangutan, Ken Allen escaped several times WHILE THE ZOO WAS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC without getting caught by watching Zoo employees, even when they tried to disguise themselves as tourists to catch him at it. While he was being “secretly” surveilled, he managed to escape AND show the other orangutans how to escape. They finally found out he was doing some thought-to-be-impossible rock climbing to escape. To fix it, they brought in a team of human rock-climbers to locate all possible methods of climbing out. So. Humans would absolutely be the worst to try to keep contained. Like, “escape rooms” are currently seen as a fun date idea. I’m sayin.

2 - animals that escape most often return to their own enclosure (after all that’s where their beds and dinners are, and if the zoo is any good it is the place best suited to their species-specific needs for miles and miles) after they have had sufficient excitement. Ken Allen the orangutan would escape and wander around the zoo looking at the animals like he’d bought a ticket. So if the keepers were nice, and formed a bond, and the set up was comfy, once the human knew they could get out if they really wanted, they’d probably go back, depending on how uncomfortable/dangerous the alien environment was.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

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May I present the best apple:

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

I don't know the regulations elsewhere, but in some countries, including the United States, where I am, your type & screen "expires" after a few days, and it will need to be repeated before you get another transfusion. We also will never, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, transfuse type A or B or AB blood into your body going only on your word (or anyone else's word, or an ID card) that you know what type you are. We test you. Every time. And until we test you, we will only give you type O, because that's the only type that won't kill the other types dead if they get the wrong one. This is why for us there's not really any point in knowing your blood type ahead of time in case of an emergency; the testing will still need to be done before you get anything but O. And then, 3 days later, the test will expire, and if you still need blood, you'll get tested again.

We do all this because Shit Happens - someone screwed up your test the first time, the wrong patient's blood got labeled as yours, you were carrying a fake ID when the ambulance brought you in, you developed a new antibody since your last transfusion, your blood type CHANGED (rare, but can happen), etc, etc - and the blood bank is the only department in the lab where if enough errors go unnoticed, we can directly kill a patient.

So, depending on where you live, this is possibly why you don't know your blood type - whoever treated you never ordered it because they didn't expect you to need a transfusion (a surprising number of surgeries are pretty light on blood loss these days, actually), so there was no reason to test you at that time. It's also possible it's suppressed/not visible to patients in whatever system they use.