Notes by Axbom (Page 141)

Per Axbom Akkoma

Så Miljöpartiet gick inte bara emot sitt eget vallöfte gällande Chat Control, när de blir påkomna så ljuger de om att det var ett misstag (som om det ens det vore okej med misstag i så här viktiga frågor)… och sedan blir de påkomna med att det inte var ett misstag utan förankrat helt korrekt enligt MP:s rutiner.

Bedrövligt är bara förnamnet.

https://emanuelkarlsten.se/bildbevisen-miljopartiet-rostade-inte-fel-om-chat-control/

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@irizoris So many wizards hiding behind curtains!! Thanks for sharing.

@Beantin @ludicity

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

One of the best posts about “AI” I’ve read. Enjoy.

"A friend of mine was invited by a FAANG organization to visit the U.S a few years ago. Many of the talks were technical demos of impressive artificial intelligence products. Being a software engineer, he got to spend a little bit of time backstage with the developers, whereupon they revealed that most of the demos were faked. The products didn't work. They just hadn't solved some minor issues, such as actually predicting the thing that they're supposed to predict. Didn't stop them spouting absolute gibberish to a breathless audience for an hour though! I blame not the engineers, who probably tried to actually get the damn thing to work, but the lying blowhards who insisted that they must make the presentation or presumably be terminated.”

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/

Thanks for the tip, @Beantin, and thank you @ludicity for writing it!

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

Det är häpnadsväckande, men ändå inte i denna alltmer bisarra värld. Regeringen väljer att ge sitt stöd till version 2 av Chat Control, något som innebär att flera partier gör en tvärvändning gällande det motstånd till Chat Control som de förmedlade i sina kampanjer till EU-valet för bara ett par veckor sedan(!)

Det är också riktigt, riktigt illa, för denna dröm för diktatorer kan klubbas redan imorgon. 😡

Oerhört viktigt gräv av Emanuel Karlsten:
https://emanuelkarlsten.se/regeringen-kuppar-igenom-chat-control-kan-klubbas-i-eu-redan-onsdag/

Oisin Cantwell har skrivit också:
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/a/gw6wLa/sverige-har-gett-tummen-upp-till-chat-control

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

I see people far in the future laughing so hard at the gullibility and foolishness of 21st century homo sapiens worshipping at the altar of technological divinity.

Well, either that or crying.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@alxd Thank you! This is really helpful. Thanks for sharing.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@arandomselection It’s part of the Ambition Empower program which is a paid program where I teach, so no stream this time. But I know this is one of those talks I’ll want to be bringing to a wider audience so likely in September I could be ready to do a public one.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

Tomorrow I am giving a talk around the importance for designers to not strive for ‘digital literacy’ but rather for ‘nature literacy’.

I believe an understanding of our connection to nature is the only way people will find incentive to stop destroying it, and to make better decisions as creators. A willingness to spend time in nature every day is part of that mindshift.

Which is why I found this statistic so very disturbing. Our tech-centric world is teaching us to ignore nature:

"The average [US] person will now spend 93% of their life indoors.”

Only 7% of a lifetime outside. And likely a great deal of that time in environments made of concrete. This happens even though we know that a lack of exposure to sunlight is causing low energy levels, problems sleeping and depression.

Even though we inherently know how good we feel every time we immerse ourselves in greenery. My wife calls it “forest bathing” when we go on dog walks in the woods. And I recently learnt that this is simply a translation of the Japanese term ‘shinrin-yoku’, a term that emerged in the 1980s as a physiological and psychological exercise. The purpose was twofold: to offer an eco-antidote to tech-boom burnout and to inspire residents to reconnect with and protect the country’s forests.

During my first months in the Fediverse in 2022 I had two people reach out and mention to me that my writings reminded them of #solarpunk, which I had up 'til then never heard of. Solarpunk aspires to provide an alternative way of viewing the future with humans living in symbiosis with nature and technology – a future where technology is not destructive but only used purposefully where it boosts universal wellbeing and an ability to harmonise with the nature we ourselves are a small part of. Not the masters of. Not disconnected from.

What Solarpunk does for me personally is to provide a way to speak about a alternative futures, rather than get stuck in always criticising the current illusions of inevitable futures.

In a breakout session tomorrow I will be trying out the Solarpunk futures cards as an aid in thinking differently about digital design.

Would love to hear if anyone has experience with running or participating in a Solarpunk-related workshop and the types of concepts or ideas that resonate and contribute to pursuing a different way of making products and services.

"It is estimated that 80% of the environmental impact of products is determined during the product design phase.” – Publications Office of the European Union

—

Solarpunk futures storytelling game (free cards available in PDF format):
https://per.ax/solarpunkcards

A nice summary of the Solarpunk vision by Leonardo Amico:
https://per.ax/solarpunkvision

Getting back to nature: how forest bathing can make us feel better
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/08/forest-bathing-japanese-practice-in-west-wellbeing

This is your brain on nature (National Geographic):
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/call-to-wild

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@carl Ja det var väldigt fint.

Mitt favoritstycke:

"I ett gott framtida samhälle måste två unika mänskliga egenskaper få fritt spelrum: originalitet och omhändertagande.

Originalitet är förmågan att skapa något nytt på vilket område det vara må. För det krävs det kunskap och fantasi, två resurser som inte uppmuntras i dag.

Men omhändertagandet är än viktigare.
Maskiner kan göra mycket men aldrig möta en människa. När maskiner blir billigare än människor hotar de att ersätta människor där människor är oumbärliga - i mötet öga mot öga. Det får inte ske i ett gott samhälle.

Naturen är också föremål för mänsklig
omtanke. Sa måste det vara mer än någonsin. Människan är ju själv ett stycke natur. Hon måste tillse att alla vi naturvarelser lever väl."

– Sven-Eric Liedman

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@NatureMC Haha, I like this line of thinking.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@ticho I’m truly in complete agreement with you, though I expect the bulk of domain registrations are from delusional ideas and startups that will never see the light of day.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

If you see a domain name ending in .ai that means the island of Anguilla got some money, as it is the owner of this country domain.

”For each domain registration, Anguilla’s government gets anywhere from $140 to thousands of dollars from website names sold at auctions, according government data.”

In 2023 just over 20% of the government’s total revenue came from these registrations.

”[…] the government used the money to provide free health care for citizens 70 and older, and it has committed millions of dollars to finish building a school and a vocational training center. The government has also allocated funds to improve its airport; doubled its budget for sports activities, events and facilities; and increased the budget for citizens seeking medical treatment overseas.”

The island was hit hard by a hurricane in 2017 and tourism essentially disappeared during the covid pandemic. The .ai domain revenue has been a welcome injection into the economy.

Now you can’t say I never talk about AI in a positive light 😉

https://per.ax/angui

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

In June 2023 I wrote:

«Will consumers perhaps come to see the phrase "AI-Powered System" in the same light as "Diesel-Powered SUV".»

Well, not yet it would seem.

In The Elements of AI Ethics from June of last year I build on The Elements of Digital Ethics from 2021. Which itself was the output of reading about digital harms for many years.

Seeing all of the categories of harms just get worse year on year is disheartening.

What goal is worth all this? I tend to fall back on a sentiment I use in my talks and teaching:

When a privileged group benefits from a technology, the more inclined they will be to ignore the harms done unto others by the same technology. Because drawing attention to the harm would suggest they should give up their personal gain to help someone else.

This appears to be true for the short term. In the long term the beneficiaries of technology will happily also ignore harm done unto themselves, as long as they get the experience boost in the moment.

What hope is there?

In my June 11 session for Ambition Empower I will be talking about how to champion technologies of compassion, drawing on work related to nature connectedness by P. Wesley Schultz, Marianne E. Krasny, F. Stephan Mayer and Cynthia M Frantz.

Technologies of compassion work in unison with an acknowledgement of our connection not only to each other but also to nature. Technology tends to separate us from nature, making us value it less - and causing us to increasingly worsen our own living conditions, and the conditions of all other species, over time.

But we can choose to design technology that takes nature into account.. Technology that works with, not against, nature. I believe this is what all schools must start teaching. Now.

Expect me to write more about this over the next year.

https://per.ax/aie

#solarpunk

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom LinkedIn

In June 2023 I wrote:

«Will consumers perhaps come to see the phrase "AI-Powered System" in the same light as "Diesel-Powered SUV".»

Well, not yet it would seem.

In The Elements of AI Ethics from June of last year I build on The Elements of Digital Ethics from 2021. Which itself was the output of reading about digital harms for many years.

Seeing all of the categories of harms just get worse year on year is disheartening.

What goal is worth all this? I tend to fall back on a sentiment I use in my talks and teaching:

When a privileged group benefits from a technology, the more inclined they will be to ignore the harms done unto others by the same technology. Because drawing attention to the harm would suggest they should give up their personal gain to help someone else.

This appears to be true for the short term. In the long term the beneficiaries of technology will happily also ignore harm done unto themselves, as long as they get the experience boost in the moment.

What hope is there?

In my June 11 session for Ambition Empower I will be talking about how to champion technologies of compassion, drawing on work related to nature connectedness by P. Wesley Schultz, Marianne E. Krasny, F. Stephan Mayer and Cynthia M Frantz.

Technologies of compassion work in unison with an acknowledgement of our connection not only to each other but also to nature. Technology tends to separate us from nature, making us value it less - and causing us to increasingly worsen our own living conditions, and the conditions of all other species, over time.

But we can choose to design technology that takes nature into account.. Technology that works with, not against, nature. I believe this is what all schools must start teaching. Now.

Expect me to write more about this over the next year.

https://per.ax/aie

#solarpunk

🔗 Originally posted on LinkedIn

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@hundenrajna1 @wolfman Än så länge är det bara nya Copilot+ PC som har det. Så det är ingen ko på isen, ännu.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

Alien historians:

For fifty years computers were used for their purpose: to compute exact, predictable and explainable responses to exact, interpretable queries and inputs.

Then, in what human timekeeping referred to as the early 21st century, the most exploitative classes of the human race decided that the best use of computers was to compute inexact - yet semantically believable - responses to inexact human phrasing. Each inexact response was different for multiple identical queries, and easily manipulated through more inexact phrasing.

And they chose to call those responses intelligence. We can only presume the decades prior, trusting computers for exact calculations, forced them into a delusional state of mind. Probabilistic word salad was treated as divine instruction. As further evidence of this delusion, we can refer to the sequence of events that followed.

To produce vast amounts of ’intelligence’ required extreme amounts of energy, causing consumption to skyrocket. This was during a time when it would appear that the human race were well aware that they actually needed to do the opposite: reduce energy consumption to minimise the effects of their climate crisis and save themselves.

Needless to say, much of human civilisation collapsed into a smoking pile of confusion. After their demise, Earth was again able to thrive, after we removed the heaps of harmful waste orbitting around it.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma