Libb

That a diploma doesn’t mean shit beside someone being able to say what their teacher want them to say… but that was not really new, it was just a lot more sad to experiment as naive me was hoping for something more.

I was never much into video games, but my first real interest was for Doom and then for StarCraft. I was also heavy into C&C… I was already an adult and fixed my own rules, deciding on what I wished to spend my time and waste my money.

The first video game I played as a kid was some kind of Pong version, on an Atari console. So, yeah… not much video games for me as a child. With the other kids, we played cards, board games, we played outside too (it’s great), we played chess and checkers, we also played doctor, we read a lot too. And there was no real need to set rules or limits (even less so on what we were allowed to read), not even when we played doctor, mind you—not even to tell us what was then obvious but that seems very much forgotten by too many nowadays, to not be a dick, because acting like one would warrant instant karma feedback from all the others players/participants involved… and that was kinda very quickly formative ;)

I know the reputation that AI has on Lemmy, however I’ve found that some users (like myself) have found that LLMs can be useful tools

I know the reputation that AI has on Lemmy, however I’ve found that some users (like myself) have found that LLMs can be useful tools.

Their utility is not questioned. It’s their true cost and how they’re developed that’s the issue.

No doubt a machine able to do some quick and dirty jobs that would take us a lot more time is a fine tool (like mentioned already, denoise, quick text summaries and stuff like that) edit: even complex and highly skilled stuff. The tool is already impressive today, and I don’t doubt it will get much better quickly.

The issue is how it learned to do what it can do and how it is monoetized. I mean, learning from humanity common knowledge (no AI at all without it being allowed to learn from us all) and making it… subscription-based for us to use? WTF? The issue is also how it is destroying many things in the exclusive profit of a handful of very rich people and their shareholders. The issue is how we, mankind, have zero control over a tool that is threatening to make a lot of us go bankrupt…

Feel free to downvote, obviously.

And to answer your question:

What AI tools have you found useful?

I would say, the off button… of which there is none I can find.

Yep, French, it reads ‘Les bons comptes font les bons amis’.

It’s different in my own situation (I don’t have a boss) but would I be employed I would not mix work and personal. Ever. Phone, friendship, or whatever else as there is a too high probability some shit will happen.

I would have my own phone and next to it the job would provide me another one with whatever shitty apps they require me to use, if they rely want me to use it. And I would turn that bastard off the moment my work day is finished (aka the moment they stop giving me money in exchange of my time).

Exactly like I would not use my own computer for work. It’s mine.

what about the phones in people’s pockets that could be recording and the security cameras inside buildings?

People are not supposed to be recording every thing all the time. But that’s a valid point you’re making as that trend is changing: cc cameras are everywhere and, well, people seem obsessed with the idea of recording (and sharing) every single thing they do (I’m surprised there is not pooping social networks… as it’s one thing all people have in common ;). So, I would say, it depends people, the place they’re in, and its policy.

Say, our personal place has no camera and no recording at all (no smart shit either, not even smart light bulbs or smart doorbell). And when we invite people they can be assured there will be no recording as we would not allow anyone to record anything without asking our (and anyone else present) explicit permission. And if anyone would not agree with that choice, well you know: our home, our rules—they would get kicked out of our home as quickly as needed which may already have happened maybe.

It also depends the laws in your country. here in Europe (I live in France), with the GDRP we can count on a relative level of privacy: people are not supposed to be sharing any picture of a person without their consent. But in reality that is very relative and very… subject to not persist much longer, as surveillance of every move and of every word of their citizens, sorry, I meant to say ’ the protection of the children’ is our representatives latest excuse to screw us a little more and to deprive everyone of a little more of their rights. I imagine they have not asked for thought control (to make sure some hidden pervert has no dirty thought when seeing a little children in the street or on the TV) just because the technology is not here, not yet.

Imho, what matters the most is to keep reminding (or teaching) people around us that there is no need to record absolutely everything they do or every place they go to. And that there is such a thing as intimacy and privacy.

I’ve limited myself to 3 inks… most of the time ;)

Platinum Carbon Black and DeAtramentis Document Brown (these two are waterproof inks) and the basic Waterman Blue (the same ink I used to learn handwriting when I was a little kid in school, in the 70s)

There is virtually no way to meet like-minded people who live near me because there just aren’t enough people or communities on there. Even on Lemmy (which I know isn’t totally private, but still beats Reddit) doesn’t have the volume needed to come across a lot of people who live near me. I want to meet people. I want to have friends in real life.

I don’t live in an urban planner’s utopia. I live in a car-dependent suburb on the outskirts of a city. You can’t just walk outside and meet a bunch of people, not with all of the “get off my lawn” types everywhere. You have to go somewhere else to meet people.

I hate to say it, but I don’t see how it’s feasible to meet up with normal people without some corporation or the government finding out where you’re going and who you’re associated with, at least not in the U.S. where I live.

Meeting people IRL (normal or not normal people, whatever that means) is how it is done. Without depending on any app, corporation or government. As a matter of fact, it is how those two started being a thing: people met and started doing things together and realized things would be even simpler if they formalized things and established some common rules.

Also, the first smartphone dates back from around 2007. That was 18 years ago. And there was no ‘app’ to speak of with that 1st smartphone, there was not even an app store to install apps from (this would take a few more releases before it was introduced). Do you think, not living in big crowded cities, people could not meet before 2007? ;)

Meeting people IRL is simple, and it is still free and legal to do it privately (for the time being at least). But it can also be frightening when all you’re used to is ‘apps’.

Like you said you have to go somewhere, anywhere you fancy, on feet or by car, public transit, whatever. The idea being to go where other ‘like-minded’ people are.

What will help (a lot) is to have some common interest, hobby or activity that you can use as a motivation. Say, participate in the town meetings, go to the church (no matter what one thinks about religion it’s still a a way to meet people from your community), go pick a book at the local library.

And repeat it. Regularly. So, other people will start noticing you. So you will start noticing other people and a conversation can start. Just people together.

Hobbies are another great way to meet people IRL.

I like playing chess and watercolors (and books), DIY. But it could be anything.

Games? Find a local place where people meet to play board games. There is none? Go the public library and see with the librarian if they know anyone that would be interested to start such a club with you. Librarians will often a lot of people. The smae with, say, knitting, or photography, reading, writing, running,…

It’s only very recently people decided they needed an app and, could it really be a coincidence, it is around the same time it has become so hard for younger people to meet people irl.

Being nit-picky about the paper and writing instrument I use.

If I’ve gotten better in regard to paper selection, I still own way too much fountain pens, (mechanical-)pencils, ballpoint pens, and so on.

I don’t remember.

Seriously. I’m almost 60 and I only remember when I turned 20 (I was studying and working hard, and there was that bright future waiting for me, or so I thought) and when I turned 40 (I was already bald and if I did manage to get a career it was also the year my spouse and I decided we had to get out of that crazy stupid endless race called ‘a career’ and try to live a much simpler, and much less shiny, life ;)

the rules are clearly presented. either youre not paying attention or youre just an asshole who purposefully throws their opinion in a place explicitly not wanting it.

what the fuck is wrong with you guys?

The same as with those women wanting to get in this men space? I wonder…

More seriously, you ask a legit question (as it would be legit if it was a man asking why some women so badly want to join in men-only spaces), a question that could trigger an interesting discussion, but why does it have to be so fucking angry? (See how poorly it passes?)

None. New gen Hollywood will be so politically correct that there will only be remakes of Bambi without the hunters.

As a non-lawyer I’d say this is a breach of the GDPR and other laws. This doctor hands over highly confidential data to third parties.

I would agree with you, but it is also very representative of how many doctors/specialists are working in the country and since we’re already short on doctors, I certainly don’t want to get her ‘removed’ ;)

I want to know what draws people to it and why keep consuming

Like mentioned by others, for most people sex is a basic need porn being a substitute to the real thing which can be a lot more difficult to achieve than, say, wanking in front of a screen.

and making it?

Why do people make porn? Money. Porn is big money.

They can just ignore it and if they get caught those fines are just a “cost of doing business”.

I think we won’t have to wait that long to see if they keep on ignoring it or if, like I think they will do, they will coerce the EU into curbing its (probably too) many regulations.

The only way is not to use any of them.

Not that simple when more and more services are not just ‘nice to have’ or for fun but required.

I can not use streaming services (and I don’t), I can not play online. I can not use YT, and so on. But I cannot not use my doctors, right?

Here in France, our medical appointments (and more and more of our medical data) are hosted by the ‘Doctolib’ platform which uses… MSFT servers (note that it would not be much better it they were using AWS or Google). Add to that that almost all doctors are using Doctolib which makes it so you can hardly get an appointment without using that service even when you take said appointment by phone since on their side of the call they will then record said appointment on Doctolib, because it’s what they’ve been taught to use and associate it with the email address you probably have already given them if they need to contact you (email that most of the time will be either Gmail or Msft).

On the same line, for years I used to receive most of my medical analysis and exams (of which I have… quite a few every single year) through snail mail or directly after the examination, as a print out. I stopped to, they’re now all stored on Doctolib and even if I did not have an account, it’s stored on all my doctors accounts…

Last year, the last of the many doctors not using it did not even inform us they had started using Doctolib. One morning, after calling them for my next appointment, I simply received confirmation through Doctolib by email and on their app.

Worse (?), another doctor of mine is using Gmail for all her email with her patients, email that is used to send and receive test results, share intimate informations,… I explained the issue to her, even suggesting a couple EU-based alternatives. She plolitely listened to me and then shrugged telling me Gmail worked fine and was free. She is a good doctor, mind you, but like too many she simply can’t be bothered with changing her habits.

Imho, in the case of services like those and email, thd solution is not to stop using them: even if I don’t use them myself, that doesn’t change much the moment my correspondents keep using them, or even if said email is at one time or another hoisted on US-owned server.

A better solution would be to make it much more obvious that we should use EU-based solutions, because it’s in our best interest, and make it much more rewarding too, maybe, and make it simpler. And then, sometimes make it mandatory as in required by some law to use EU-based solutions but how would that be a thing when most of our elected are just… well, they are what they are, and that’s not a compliment.

A longer term solution should also be to give younger people (it’s too late for the vast majority of the older generations, even more so for mine), to give them a minimal but real (not the usual bullshit) computer education and to also give them some notions on the value of privacy in a democratic society, be it digital privacy or not. But how would that be a thing in the same as education as almost entirely given up on teaching kids even fundamentals skills like doing math, reading and writing?

Not talking about what we have (I’m French, thx I know GDPR) but what I think will be the next target of the US. And, to me, it will be those regulations making it so hard for US businesses to do whatever they want with our data.

nothing. We clean the place and we open windows as often as possible (even during winter cold).

100% agree. This should be as easy as creating a new account.

Alas, this :

Maybe the EU will pass some legislation that will carry over to the US . . .

Is highly unlikely.

The EU just knelt once more to the USA (and to Trump) and that won’t end here. I have little doubt USA next target in the EU will be most if not all regulations regarding data handling/protection. US businesses need data more than ever (at the very least because of AI), including EU citizens data.

CDs + locally saved files. Like with movies, we have quit using all streaming services and we own the media we watch… or we don’t watch them.

What I was about to say: wires seem way too short to do much. Tying them together would be my choice too.

Also, I’m really not an expert but I’m also not sure this machine needs that much of cable management for improving airflow as there must not be that much to begin with? I see the two fans at the bottom but where is the ventilation in the top of the case? So, I’m not sure much air would have to pass through the bundle of cables.