loss of a talented scientist to senseless violence
UC Irvine astrophysics PhD student Jose Antonio Flores Velazquez killed in drive by shooting. Child of immigrants from Mexico. Dreamed of helping his dad retire from construction work.
"Before he died, he submitted a draft of his research paper in which he used advanced supercomputer simulations to interpret telescopes’ observations about the rate at which galaxies form stars"
Sometimes this world is so cruel
A smarthome concept that wasn't absolute hell: the mid-80s Soviet SPHINX project, based on the idea that there would be a central, modular PC and appliances in the house like the TV would connect to it via the LAN. Everything was designed to be easily-expandable or pared-down as needed. It was purely conceptual but the props looked cool as hell.
Pol, fascism
always remember: Hitler cited the United States as a direct inspiration for his regime. he admired our genocide of the indigenous people and our forcing black folks into subservience. Jim Crow was in fact a direct inspiration for the Nuremberg laws.
so it's ironic, in the least funny way possible, when Americans think it can't happen here.
voidpoint, ion fury, I guess we gotta do this, cw transphobia
I didn't realize it would be so heartbreaking to actually read through the discord chat
Apparently there was a trans woman on discord using the handle Ten who patiently tried to explain to the devs the whole deal with transitioning is. I feel so so bad for them and I guess more people need to see what she willingly went through for liking a cool game https://www.resetera.com/threads/ion-fury-devs-show-signs-of-transphobia-among-other-issues-update-voidpoint-twitter-responds.135368/page-17#post-23674999
WHAT PEOPLE THINK ETHICAL ISSUES IN AI ARE: wow.... we're creating... new life........
WHAT ETHICAL ISSUES IN AI ACTUALLY ARE: techbros worshiping the almighty algorithm, not caring to look at what bad patterns the machines are picking up (racism, sexism, etc) and how to avert them, and overreliance on neural networks meaning that said algorithms are treated as magical black boxes where nobody wants to (or can, really) point out exactly how the equation works (and why it may be faulty)
basically if people would just carve off 5% of the sci-fi panic and anxiety and spend that energy being legitimately concerned about how if you tell a computer "learn the rules of this game", the rules it will come back to report to you will be dripping with systemic inequality that must be directly confronted instead of excused or praised as infallible because "a passionless computer did it"
we'd all be much better off
quit worrying about if AI is going to be creating new consciousness
start worrying about AI learning how to enforce things like redlining and the glass ceiling
worry about it because *it's happening now*.
Trans, guy of center, well over 18.
I'm in tech and it feels weird.