Virgin Money's AI-powered chatbot will scold you if you use the word "virgin".
https://www.ft.com/content/670f5896-1fe5-4a31-b41f-ad4f5b91202f
Archived link: https://archive.is/gGVgt
ai
DeepSeek launched a free, open-source large-language model in late December, claiming it was developed in just two months at a cost of under $6 million — a much smaller expense than the one called for by Western counterparts.
These developments have stoked concerns about the amount of money big tech companies have been investing in AI models and data centers, and raised alarm that the U.S. is not leading the sector as much as previously believed.
The sad reality is that the US could lead in this field (1), if we'd stop routinely putting narcissists and con artists in charge and showering them with praise even when they fail.
From https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/27/nvidia-falls-10percent-in-premarket-trading-as-chinas-deepseek-triggers-global-tech-sell-off.html
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLM #SnakeOil #hype #grift #MarketCapitalism
(1) Putting aside whether we should, which is an important question.
"You need suckers who think AI is effectively magic:
… people with lower AI literacy perceive AI to be more magical, and thus experience greater feelings of awe when thinking about AI completing tasks, which explain their greater receptivity towards using AI-based products and services.
AI marketing is 100% about whether the sucker is sufficiently wowed by an impressive demo."
From https://econtwitter.net/users/amycastor/statuses/113902204443133686
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #SnakeOil
… people with lower AI literacy perceive AI to be more magical, and thus experience greater feelings of awe when thinking about AI completing tasks, which explain their greater receptivity towards using AI-based products and services.
AI marketing is 100% about whether the sucker is sufficiently wowed by an impressive demo."
From https://econtwitter.net/users/amycastor/statuses/113902204443133686
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #SnakeOil
"But to [Aaron, the creator of the anti-AI software Nepenthes], the fight is not about winning. Instead, it's about resisting the AI industry further decaying the Internet [...]."
Or to paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre:
"You don’t fight enshittification because you are going to win, you fight enshittification because it is enshittification."
#news #TechNews #technology #ai #nepenthes #enshittification
"[California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s] memo clearly illustrates what a legal clusterfuck the AI industry represents, though it doesn’t even get around to mentioning U.S. copyright law, which is another legal gray area where AI companies are perpetually running into trouble."
Edited 249d ago
I've been reading up on the Lottery Ticket Hypothesis, which is super interesting.
Basically, the observation is that these days we build vast neural networks with billions of parameters, but most of the parameters aren't needed. That is, after training, you can just throw away 95% of the network (pruning), and it will still work fine.
The LTH paper is asking: could we start with a network just 5% of the size, and get comparable results? If so, that would be a huge performance win for Deep Learning.
What's interesting is that you can do this, but only by training the full network (perhaps several times) to see which neurons are needed. They argue that training a neural network isn't so much creating a model, as finding a lucky sub-network (a lottery ticket) from the randomly initialized network, a bit like a sculpter "finding" the bust hidden in a block of marble.
Initial LTH paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03635
Follow-up with major clarifications: http://arxiv.org/abs/1905.01067
Oh wow, someone reporting losing a "year of Ableton projects" after running an AI-generated script.
"I didn’t realize what it was doing and ran it without backing anything up."
There's a few lessons to be learned here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/comments/1kmnhfu/lost_a_year_of_ableton_projects_after_running_a/
"Wait, isn't this the plot to the "Terminator" movies?"
https://futurism.com/openai-signs-deal-us-government-nuclear-weapon-security
#news #technology #TechNews #AI #OpenAI #military #terminator
Edited 322d ago
Did you know? #Fedify provides #documentation optimized for LLMs through the llms.txt standard.
Available endpoints:
https://fedify.dev/llms.txt — Core documentation overview
https://fedify.dev/llms-full.txt — Complete documentation dump
Useful for training #AI assistants on #ActivityPub/#fediverse development, building documentation chatbots, or #LLM-powered dev tools.
If you turn the sink off when you're done using it to conserve water, or turn the lights off when you leave the room to conserve electricity, why do you use ChatGPT or other AI tools? Using those sorts of tools a few times a month negates whatever you've conserved by being prudent in other parts of your life.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLM #waste #environment
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLM #waste #environment
The #EU bans some #AI uses and regulates most of the rest, in service of its citizens and not the "techbros".
AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/02/ai-systems-with-unacceptable-risk-are-now-banned-in-the-eu/
Resistance to the coup is the defense of the human against the digital and the democratic against the oligarchic.
Defense of the human against the digital has been my mission for some time. Resisting the narratives about how #LLMs "reason", "pass the Turing test", "diagnose illnesses", are "better than humans" in various ways are part of it. Resisting the false narrative that we're on the verge of discovering #AGI is part of it. Allowing these false stories to persist and spread means succumbing to very dark anti-human forces. We're seeing some of the consequences now, and we're seeing how far this might go.
#USPol #AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLM #AGI
Some argue that ai technology is more significant than electricity or the internet, and so it will spread fast. But there is little sign of this. Only 5-6% of American businesses said they used ai to produce goods and services in 2024, according to the country’s Census Bureau.
What's the puzzle? It has its uses but generally this technology is not particularly useful for most people. Countless billions of dollars have been spent hyping it up to pretend that isn't the case. But reality matters.
Nowadays I think of generative AI as a power grab. It's not a useful tool for a lot of people, but it's exceptionally useful to people who want to grab and hold power, or restructure power in their favor.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI
"The original video showing off Google's Gemini offerings in Workspace was posted five days ago and showed the AI generating a response for a small-business owner in Wisconsin. In the response, Gemini claims Gouda accounts for "50 to 60% of the world's cheese consumption.
The edited ad now shows a Gemini response that says Gouda "is one of the most popular cheeses in the world."
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-super-bowl-ad-gemini-ai-gouda-cheese-2025-2
Archived link: https://archive.is/2cX3i
Not sure what the chances of this bill passing are, but it's certainly interesting to see the efforts.
"Under Hawley’s proposed law, “technology or intellectual property” developed in China would be barred from importation into the U.S. Anyone found violating these restrictions could face up to 20 years in prison, as well as substantial monetary penalties of up to $1 million for individuals and $100 million for companies."
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/law-proposed-to-criminalize-deepseek
Unbelievable
#ElonMusk’s US #DOGE Service are feeding sensitive data into #AI software via #Microsoft’s #cloud
#Musk’s US #DOGE Service have fed sensitive data from across the #Education Dept into #ArtificialIntelligence software to probe the agency’s programs & spending…. The AI probe includes data w/personally identifiable info for people who manage grants, & sensitive internal financial data…
#law #security #InfoSec #CyberSecurity #NationalSecurity #Trump #TrumpCoup
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/02/06/elon-musk-doge-ai-department-education/
"Inevitably creating the potential for bots emailing other bots and absolutely nothing else to worry about."
On the limits of LLMs (Large Language models) and LRMs (Large Reasoning Models). The TL;DR: "Our findings reveal fundamental limitations in current models: despite sophisticated self-reflection mechanisms, these models fail to develop generalizable reasoning capabilities beyond certain complexity thresholds." Meaning: accuracy collapse.
Interesting paper from Apple. https://ml-site.cdn-apple.com/papers/the-illusion-of-thinking.pdf
Edited 120d ago
Happy #FishFriday !
Time to #MakeSomethingFishy
**not affiliated with #HashtagGames** but my shameless promotion of my Ebay store where I sell hand crafted aquarium ornaments and other things. But feel free to play along!
https://www.ebay.com/usr/crystal_fish_caves
#handmade #crafts #fedigiftshop #FishofMastodon #pets #diy no #ai photoshop only
"Australia’s Department of the Treasury has found that Microsoft’s Copilot can easily deliver return on investment, but staff exposed to the AI assistant came away from the experience less confident it will help them at work."
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/australian_treasury_copilot_pilot_assessment/