I’m definitely voting for the leopards again this year. I mean, last time they ate the faces of people just like me, some of whom I didn’t like very much to begin with. But ultimately, I was mostly unharmed last time. Surely that will continue to be the case, and the leopards will only way the faces of other people,and not me.

No, you’re missing the point. You see, this special immunity should only apply to Trump. Because he’s Trump, and if he says stupid things often enough, some people will believe him.

That’s what they’re saying folks. It’s true. It’s all true.

We need more Mexicans in Australia, all we have is crappy Taco Bill

Now you’ve made Taco Bill sad. He may not be Mexican but he loves tacos as much as anyone!

Yeah, I agree. Their premise is faulty. Places serve tacos and quesadillas because they’re cheap and easy to produce and many Americans like them, not simply because there are more Latinos in the US.

Now, if they said that there are more independent family-owned Mexican restaurants, I would consider that a bit more compelling.

The words “anti trust” mean nothing in 2024. There are literally federal laws against businesses merging to form an unfair advantage and buying up all of their competitors like this. But anti trust laws are treated like those silly old timey laws like you cannot chain your alligator to a fire hydrant or you can’t carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket. Yeah, technically they’re on the books, but when’s the last time they were truly enforced?

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These are some very pretty words that express ideas without much self-reflection on why the ideas might be bad.

I mean, I suppose you did say it yourself that you can’t trust the US government… but why would you trust ANY government? You know why I trust Google more than any government? I understand Google’s motivations ($$$). Put something into the hands of government and suddenly that thing is burdened by the desires of every politician and their special interest financiers.

“Place it in the hands of something like the UN” would mean some international body I assume. Comprised of and led by whom exactly? And also, who would fund the thing? You suggest nationalization, so… taxpayers? Sure, here’s your $99/year Degooglebase access fee tax I guess? And beyond just making sure there’s enough money to keep the lights on, we need to make sure there’s enough money to pay creators. After all, YouTube isn’t just a library. It’s an economy larger than some countries and there would be consequences to destabilizing that economy. People aren’t just posting content for the love of the shared experience.

Please don’t take what I’m saying here to be a defense of Google. Google is a shitty company for so many reasons. But advocating for nationalization of YouTube is just a horrifically bad idea in such manner as it was presented.

But - all is not lost. First: for the creators you enjoy - find ways to support them other than Google. Make it possible for them to continue when YouTube stops being lucrative enough.

Second: find, use, and advocate for the use of alternative services. There is no single site that is going to be able to replace YouTube. It simply isn’t going to happen unless PornHub wants to step up to the game and create their own SFW site YouTube-killer. They have the infrastructure and capacity to host and share absolutely massive amounts of video and have the business capabilities to accept income and pass it on to creators on a large scale. But that’s an entirely different discussion.

Best to look at things differently. Like the Fediverse and the internet itself, it might be better off if the platform were distributed.

Let’s not pretend like Google isn’t earning any money

It’s almost like there should be some sort of cookbook with all these ideas of things that a happy citizen should never do…

I tend to agree with your last point, especially because of the way the system has been bastardized over the years. What started out as well intentioned legislation to ensure that authors and artists maintain control over their work has become a contentious and litigious minefield that barely protects creators.

Let me ask you this: when have you ever seen ChatGPT cite its sources and give appropriate credit to the original author?

If I were to just read the NYT and make money by simply summarizing articles and posting those summaries on my own website without adding anything to it like my own commentary and without giving credit to the author, that would rightfully be considered plagiarism.

This is a really interesting conundrum though. I would argue that AI isn’t capable of original thought the way that humans are and therefore AI creators must provide due compensation to the authors and artists whose data they used.

AI is only giving back some amalgamation of words and concepts that it has been trained on. You might say that humans do the same, but that isn’t exactly true. The human brain is a funny thing. It can forget, it can misremember. It can manipulate. It can exaggerate. It can plan. It can have irrational or emotional responses. AI can’t really do those things on its own. It’s just mimicking human behavior at best.

Most importantly to me though, AI is not capable of spontaneous thought. It is only capable of providing information that it has been trained on and only when prompted.

It’s honestly difficult for me to say because there are so many different ways to train AI. It really depends more on what the trainers configure to be a data point. Volume of files vs size of a single file aren’t as important as what the AI believes is a data point and how the data points are weighted.

Just as a simple example, a data point may be considered a row on a spreadsheet without regard for how that data was split up across files. So ten files with 5 rows each might have the same weight as one file with 50 rows. But there’s also a penalty concept in some models, so the trainer can set it so that data that all comes from one file may be penalized. Or the opposite could be true if data coming from the same file is deemed to be more important in some way.

In terms of how AIs make their decisions, that can also vary. But generally speaking, if 1000 pieces of data are used that are all similar in some way and one of them is somewhat different from the others, it is less likely that that one-off data will be used. It’s much more likely to have an effect If 100 of the 1000 pieces of data have that same information. There’s always the possibility of using that 1/1000 data, it’s just less likely to have a noticeable effect.

AIs build confidence in responses based on how much a concept is reinforced, so you’d have to know something about the training algorithm to be able to intentionally impact the results.

It’s more about where the host server is located. Server owners in the US can lose protection from law suits if they don’t actively moderate.

I’m a technically savvy average consumer. I’ve just been accepting the enshitification. It feels like every month a different company is raising prices.

I’m about ready to put on an eye patch and fly the Jolly Roger at this point.

Yes, within reason. I’m actually not sure where that line is drawn though. Like whether sending a pre-paid shipping label and asking you to drop it off at a nearby UPS store is enough or if they actually have to have someone pick it up from your home or wherever it was shipped to.

You might already know this, but be mindful that if a company sent you the wrong thing and it wasn’t a gift or solicitation, (i.e. an error - even if it was a preventable error) you do legally have to give it back if asked. Which is fair IMO. If I’m sending something expensive and fat finger the address, I’d want it back too.

Aye matey! In fact, they’re are entire communities right here in the Lemmyverse all about sailing the digital seas!

Kind of interesting what can be done without the oversight of corporate overlords and monied interests.

It really depends on what the AI training is looking for. You can potentially poison an AI training model, but you’ll likely have to add enough data to be statistically relevant.

The latest stable diffusion base model will be trained 100% on Dropbox dick pics. Your dick’s likeness will be merged with that of thousands of other dicks and will be used to generate semi-realistic dick imagery.

Benefiting from the ill health and suffering of others? Yeah that sounds right