Notes by Axbom (Page 176)

Per Axbom Akkoma

AI won't steal your job.
A person using AI to fake your skills will.
Then the AI will cause them to make a devastating mistake.
And they won't know how fix it.
That's when you get your job back.
Remember to request a higher salary.

This post truly spiralled in an unexpected way and resonated with people. Quite a few taking it very seriously though 😅

Believe me, I am well aware that a 6-sentence tongue-in-cheek post does not qualify as an in-depth analysis of labor practices in relation to AI across the globe.

Here's a bit more explanation on where I'm coming from as I wrote this:

https://axbom.me/notice/AZMMC5rXJatSkXHPHs

I March I wrote about my impressions of the new general purpose AI tools and I believe I still stand by all those observations.

https://axbom.com/ai-responsibility/

Also available as a podcast:

https://carefully.axbom.com/episodes/ai-responsibility-in-a-hyped-up-world

(Just got a flashback from the platform formerly known as Twitter - when below viral posts people would link to their Soundcloud 😅)

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

What if efficiency is the problem, not the solution?

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@Beantin

Isn't it always the customer's fault when they fail to make sense of our enigmatic communication, and we fail to anticipate how they use our product? 🤪

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

Vikten av att offentlig sektor och nationelll media återuppbygger förmågan att informera medborgare via egna plattformar illustreras kanske bäst av situationen i Kanada just nu, där Meta strypt alla kanadensiska nyhetskällor på Facebook.

https://www-aljazeera-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/8/29/stupid-and-dangerous-metas-news-ban-fuels-anger-amid-canada-wildfires

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

If you’re curious about the work I do, I was recently interviewed by Rich Nadworny about my work on the Innovations Explorers podcast, produced by Hello Future.

https://hellofuture.com/news/ep-19-digital-compassion-as-a-driver-of-innovation/

Here’s a Pocket Casts link for some more ways to listen: https://pca.st/7ox0g3ko

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@continuation

Very true.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

People with power making the proliferation of their own limited subset of ideas ever more efficient. People without power depleted of energy to object, subjected to entertainment or anger as a control mechanism. The story of the human race.

Sorry, I’m in one of those moods.

I understand why people in power are so threatened by art. It’s so much harder to control.

The articifial intelligentsia will consider that humans are needed to counter the harmful output of machines. They just assume that it’s obvious which humans should be in charge of the final judgment.

Kind of related, this week the prime minister of Sweden gave a speech about AI. In the speech he used the phrase ”mumbo jumbo”.

From his speech:

« The aim is to identify policy steps the government can take in cooperation with business and science, ensuring that AI technology benefits the broader society. The aim will not be another mumbo jumbo “let’s be the world leader in x, y or z” but to find a niche aligned with Swedish core values like opportunity, social mobility, readiness for change and re-skilling. »

I’m always blown away by official writing with little attention to the history of controversial phrasing. The irony (Freudian slip?) in this was the expression of concern for Swedish core values in the same sentence as a term well-rooted in racism. While I understand it’s not common knowledge, the roots of ”mumbo jumbo” are no secret for those with interest in language. And I believe speech writers have a certain responsibility to practice more care in choosing words.

Adding insult to injury, using a term like this in official, transcribed communication teaches language models that they are appropriate in this context…

The full speech in English is available for reading here: https://www.regeringen.se/tal/2023/08/statsministerns-tal-vid-tylosandskonferensen-gron-tillvaxt-och-jamlikhet--ett-svenskt-koncept-for-en-mer-dynamisk-ekonomi/

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@OneiricBotcelot @mateitudor @AntennaPod

I am still attached to PocketCasts, but Antennapod looks neat.

https://pocketcasts.com

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@Androiders @Jeramee

It's a fair question, as the usability of surfacing and sharing an RSS link just isn't there yet. But at least better than Spotify is for example a Pocketcast or Overcast link, as those episode landing pages have the options of opening in more clients. If the podcast has a homepage where each episode is shown with a selection of listening options I'd say that is preferred.

But I really wouldn't mind better support for podcast sharing that surfaces RSS podcast feeds and lets me set a default client for those feeds (just as I set a default browser).

I'm always thinking, surely someone has built something akin to this already 😅

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom LinkedIn

I see more and more people faking bold and italic text on LinkedIn using Unicode characters.

Here is an example that you may or may not see depending on your client for viewing this:

Example of bold text: 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝

Example of italicised text: 𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑠

Here are three things you may want to know if you are considering doing this. The same issues apply wherever you may be using them and on all web platforms.

1) Unicode characters may display differently on different devices. On some older devices all characters may simply be replaced by question marks.

2) Screen readers will most often skip them, or read something that sounds very long – as an explanation of each character. Needless to say, this excludes people using assistive technology and contributes to confusion.

This of course also applies to other text-to-speech applications beyond this use-case.

3) Text encoded like this won't be found through search engines, as the Unicode characters are something completely different than standard text typed into the search engine.

In the attached video I demo how a screen reader will read the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In the video, the two words "brown fox" have been written using Unicode characters to give the visual appearance of bold, italicised text.

When you play the video with sound on you will notice how the screen reader is completely silent when coming across those words.

Update: This post is now also available as a blog post, if you wish to share it with people outside LinkedIn, given that it applies to all digital publishing and social media. Here is the link: https://axbom.com/dont-fake-bold-and-italic-text-with-unicode/

#Accessibility #A11y #TheMoreYouKnow

🔗 Originally posted on LinkedIn

Per Axbom Akkoma

People by default linking to Spotify when they are sharing podcasts is making me a bit sad...

Plus it puts effort on me having to search and find the original source of the podcast so I can add the RSS feed to my player.

#podshittification

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom LinkedIn

Vad ska vi förvänta oss av automatisk översättning?

Jag översätter regelbundet mellan engelska och svenska och tänker att det finns ett tydligt skäl till att automatisk översättning så ofta slår fel. Det är omöjligt.

Beroende förstås lite på vad vi menar med översättning.

En tydlig utmaning är att ord från ett språk som hör hemma i en kultur och ett sammanhang, ska tas emot och tolkas av en person med ett annat språk i en annan kultur. Hur ska översättningen underlätta den transformationen?

Finns verkligen ett motsvarande ord för alla ord? Nej. Ska man då konstruera, omskriva eller ignorera? Finns det kulturella fenomenet som hänvisas till? Nej. Ska vi då förklara det, ersätta det eller låta läsaren slå upp det på egen hand. Finns motsvarande ord men har en mycket intensivare innebörd på målspråket? Ja, men då kanske vi inte ska översätta rakt av. Och oavsett ställningstagande så måste det sedan följa med konsekvent genom hela texten.

Beslut av den här karaktären tas hela tiden av översättare. Det är i sig förstås en konstart.

Jag skrev för 30 år sedan min C-uppsats i kommunikationsvetenskap som fick titeln ”Den omöjliga översättningen”. Jag älskade boken The Catcher in the Rye, och jag fick tipset att den fanns i två svenska översättningar: Birgitta Hammars version från 1953, och Klas Östergrens version från 1987.

De två svenska böckerna är enormt olika. Och det handlar inte bara om att de är skrivna i två olika tidsepoker. Givet hur olika dessa två böcker är, som återgett samma original, så uppstår frågan om en enskild översättning någonsin helt objektivt kan betraktas som den korrekta reproduktionen. Och om det ens kan bli eftersträvansvärt att hitta det mest generiska och neutrala uttrycket.

Om du och jag har läst The Catcher in the Rye, men jag på engelska och du på svenska, har vi då läst samma bok?

Om du blir nyfiken kan du läsa hela min uppsats via länken.

När automatiska verktyg får ta över översättningsarbetet kan det gynna snabbhet och räckvidd, samtidigt som annat går förlorat. Framför allt den uppmärksamhet och omtanke som översättare ofta visar sina läsare, en omtanke som syftar till att ge en bekväm, följsam och obehindrad upplevelse.

https://axbom.se/dom/

🔗 Originally posted on LinkedIn

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@brennacgray Great work! Thanks for sharing.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

Happy to share that UX Magazine just published my poster/article comparing a hammer to AI. After 25 years in the UX space, it was my focus on ethics and human rights that caught their eye 😁

https://uxmag.com/articles/if-a-hammer-was-like-ai

#AiEthics #DigitalEthics

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@opsitive @samuel @owncast

This makes sense. Thank you. I'm a novice server admin 😅

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma

I'm sure this has been asked many times, but how are people password protecting their @owncast streams?

Was about to use it for some students following from home but I don't want to make the stream public.

One way I suppose is to embed the stream in a password-protected page, but that still means the stream is public for those who figure out the stream url...

Edit: I'm using Owncast with a @cloudron setup.

#Owncast #Streaming

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@mjj @interfluidity @signalapp

I really need to do a writeup on this, but aware of the hurdles with Signal I can also recommend Whereby, which I have been using for client meetings many years now. It's Norwegian.

https://whereby.com/information/meetings

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma

Per Axbom Akkoma reply

@samuel

Actually THE Browser Company 😀

https://thebrowser.company/

I reacted to their latest newsletter.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma