Interesting article. The results of the author’s research is consistent with my understanding of the social media landscape in countries like the Philippines, which I believe are extremely toxic and partisan. However, I’m not sure the additional studies linked support the argument that social media does not increase polarisation. I’ve only read the abstracts of each so it’s quite possible I’m overlooking something, but they immediately seem flawed due to their reliance on consenting participants. I would have thought that anyone who agrees to take part in such a study is clearly an outlier within society and therefore not a reliable test subject. Polarisation via algorithm relies on people being unwittingly exposed to content; if they’re switched on enough to deactivate their social media accounts or disable re-shares as part of a study into political polarisation, they are clearly not representative of society at large.

The design is also noticeably softer and cuter than previous Pixels, which may appeal more to some.

I found this article quite interesting, as I deactivated my main Facebook account around the time the article asserts Facebook was still “trying” and only recently created a new account under a generic pseudonym to access all the community and small business information that is still locked entirely to the platform. Because I have basically nothing in my feed on this account, Facebook backfills it with “recommended” posts and I was pretty shocked at how universally terrible they are. I guess the algorithm uses my location and gender to generate these recommendations, since I’ve provided very little in the way of alternative information or interaction for it to use. As a result, my default feed is basically just a wall of misogynistic and highly sexualised slop and even the few genuine recommended posts (like backpackers looking for travelling buddies) are clearly being recommended because they feature young women with a bunch of older men thirsting over them in the comments.

Really great article, and thanks for posting the text of it.

You’re welcome. It was their daily free article to email subscribers. I can’t afford to pay a subscription fee for full access but I find the combination of their mailing list + podcast is a good way to keep up to date with their investigations.

The Fairphone 4 also has a possible 5 years of warranty (2 years standard + 3 years complimentary extended).

There’s probably something in the terms about it

2.3 Geographic Restrictions

The Paid Services, and certain content available within the Paid Services, may only be available in certain countries. You agree that you will not present any false, inaccurate or misleading information in an effort to misrepresent your country of residence, and you will not attempt to circumvent any restrictions on access to or availability of the Paid Services or content available within the Paid Services.

Terminations and Suspensions by YouTube

YouTube reserves the right to suspend or terminate your Google account or your access to all or part of the Service if (a) you materially or repeatedly breach this Agreement; (b) we are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order; or © we believe there has been conduct that creates (or could create) liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates.

I don’t understand these surprise pikachu reactions from some people. If you break the terms of service you are running the risk that the company in question will terminate your service or account at some point in the future. There is nothing controversial or surprising about this, other than the fact that Google has taken so long to get around to it.

The article is only based on a handful of accounts from reddit, but it would be quite funny considering how many people I’ve encountered who do this and think they are geniuses or morally superior because they don’t use an ad-blocker. Let’s see how they feel after a fee hike. :)

How is stacking 10 buckets of sand and letting them fall in an art gallery, comparable to real art? Dunno, but they call it that: “real art”.

Your insinuation here was that AI art is “real art” because someone once stacked 10 buckets of sand and called it “real art”. It comes across as pretty desperate that you relied on a comparison with something as questionable as this to argue that AI art is the equivalent of traditional art. As you said, there will always be artists and “artists”. Sounds like AI “artists” fit in quite well with the latter group.

Err, you admitted yourself that you are absolutely clueless when it comes to AI music generation. So yes, your “point” was a bad one and clearly came from a place of complete ignorance.

I’m not sure equating AI art to sand bucket man is the glowing endorsement you think it is.

They’re not just typing in “make me a pretty image” and then refreshing a lot.

The only explanation I’ve received so far sounded exactly like this, just with more steps to disguise the underlying process.

You’re sort of stepping around the issue here. Are you confirming that AI art is about cycling through options blind until you stumble across something you like?

It was a terrible and irrelevant point, as I explained. Thanks for the links though, I will check them out.

In some cases, this will mean prioritizing security above other things we do, such as releasing new features or providing ongoing support for legacy systems.

Hopefully this doesn’t go the Apple direction where “security” becomes the catch-all defence for anti-consumer business practices.

You keep using the word “vision”, but I have a hard time understanding how an AI artist has a vision equivalent to that of a traditional artist based on the explanation you’ve provided. It still sounds they are just cycling through AI generated options until they find something they like/that looks good. That is not the same as seeing something in your mind and then manually recreating that to the best of your ability.

You see where I’m going with this?

No, I’m sorry but those are terrible examples. Synthesisers still require full creative control and an understanding of sound production techniques to create a custom sound. Some musicians rely on presets and samples, but even then they still need to be capable of actually composing a piece of music. Also, the debate was largely about whether synthesisers could be considered real instruments, not whether the music created by synthesisers was real music. The Hip Hop comparison is completely irrelevant and an even worse attempt at conflating genuine criticism of AI “musicians” with “old people are just mad”.

I don’t know anything about AI music generation

It’s literally just prompts AFAIK, so the people making it don’t require any musical talent, ability or creativity. They are just asking someone/something else to make them music that has a certain sound. It’s the equivalent of a monarch commissioning a piece of work from their court musician and then claiming they are a musician too.

visual art can be generated by AI models on local machines with a great amount of fine tuning and depth.

Are there specific pieces of AI art software people use? Any popular ones you can recommended to help me understand the process better?

But even if you don’t, have some respect for the AI artists out there who put time and effort into their craft.

What kind of time and effort? How is AI art a skill that is comparable to real art? I am genuinely asking here, I’d like to understand your work process.

I am not a visual artist, but I have composed my own music and the amount of time and/or effort needed to create a comparable piece using generative AI is not even close to being the same. I think there is a place for AI tools that assist artists, but people generating entire pieces using AI and then referring to themselves as “artists” is honestly delusional and sad. I hope that’s not what you are referring to here.

From the article:

The Atlantic has a corporate partnership with OpenAI. The editorial division of The Atlantic operates independently from the business division.

Yes, I always get the feeling that a lot of these militant AI sceptics are pretty clueless about where the technology is and the rate at which it is improving. They really owe it to themselves to learn as much as they can so they can better understand where the technology is heading and what the best form of opposition will be in the future. As you say, relying on “haha Google made a funny” isn’t going to cut it forever.

Sounds like the ads are limited to a couple of nonessential applications that can be disabled or uninstalled, so I don’t think these are contradictory statements.