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  • 16 Posts
  • 760 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 14th, 2023

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  • Ngl, it’s kind of cool! I put one of the two public facing images I have published of myself and it’s trying to guess some details, some right, a few hilariously wrong.

    A human or AI sleuth could probably figure out where I live within 10km with information on the internet, but I just have to live with that. It’s a tricky balance between putting enough out there to show you’re not just an AI vs. not giving out so much info that an AI could convincingly impersonate you.

    Information about me is scattered across the Net like horcruxes, and you’d have to know someone I know to easily piece things together. I am worried that AI has the ability to analyze these large datasets faster than ever before, whether it is my writing style or anything else, but it will still be computationally intensive with a large dataset to be able discern any details with confidence.






  • Right. Often times when something is banned, it is usually banned “until further notice” hence permanent or indeterminate length, but not always. It’s the qualifier that will specify whether a ban is temporary or not.

    The Prohibition Era was a time when alcohol was banned indefinitely, until it was repealed. Campfire bans generally are only during the season when the risk of fire is high or are disallowed during specific times of day, and those have been around for a while. Being grounded is a ban on going anywhere until a kid meets their parents’ wishes or after a certain time. Temporary parking restrictions for a special event or snow clearing have been around pre-internet and those are called parking bans. It’s not the ban itself that means permanent, even if there were a lot more uses of it meaning “until further notice”, than for a specific length. You could say that the usage of ban qualified with a specific time expiry is more common now than it did before, but I would argue it did exist in the past. Why that is, I could only guess.

    I can go check a 20 year old dictionary in a few weeks when I visit family over the holidays and I can check if there’s a significantly different definition.


  • Ban just means you are not allowed to do something. You can add a qualifier to note how long it is but on its own, there is no implied timeframe, it could be short or long no problem. A permanent ban means explicitly it will not be lifted after a certain period of time.

    A suspension means that you stop doing something but you could expect to restart. In most contexts this is on a temporary basis, but you can specify an “indefinite suspension”, which practically is the same as a permanent ban, but perhaps connotating greater chance to appeal it or some conditions that may occur at an indeterminate point that would lift the suspension.






  • Perhaps, but it all depends on the judge’s decision whether X corp’s argument is completely bullshit or not.

    For your Valve example, in the Subscriber Agreement you can terminate the agreement, or Valve can terminate it for a violation of the Agreement rules, with no refunds. For a termination without a valid reason, “no refunds” does not necessarily apply. I’m not saying it would be hard for Valve to come up with a bullshit reason to cancel anyone’s account on a whim or to change the terms so that they get broken easily, but it’s not automatic and courts can assign value to a specific license you have access to, based on the jurisdiction, in particular in places like Quebec, Australia, and the EU.

    9C. Termination by Valve

    Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally, or (b) you breach any terms of this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is restricted or terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or improper or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees or of any unused funds in your Steam Wallet, will be granted.










  • Technology like the loom, the steam shovel, the aeroplane, rocketry, computers, nuclear energy, the internet, and now AI, are each tools that have really changed our world, and put many different people out of work, but it has also reduced a lot of back-breaking, time-consuming work, so it has allowed our world to go a lot faster. From an excavator being able to move a lot more dirt in a day than 5 men with shovels, AI can help with getting the initial ideas of the creative process, can help with parsing initial queries from customers, a first pass filter of a huge repository of legal documents, be a patient teacher for beginner programming or other subjects, and so on. Each tool can have been overpromised to do everything, but that doesn’t mean it had no purpose.

    With that said, any of these tools and technologies can be used for bad as much as they can be used for good. And combatting that doesn’t just mean waiting around hoping for the people entrenched in power using tech to satiate their own personal gain, to suddenly reject their gains to commit them for the good of society. It means organizing to protect your neighbour. It means sharing the benefit of these tools with others, using them for good, and improving them for others.

    My point is that it’s not AI that will cause society to crash, it’s greed and corporate greed, who are being assisted by the unrealistic hype over AI.