schmorp @ schmorpel @slrpnk.net

bog creature

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2 yr. ago

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Technological progress is okay if it is

1. ecologically sustainable
2. in the hands of the public, not a few corporations.

And AI fails for both.

Erm how much is than in sheep or potatos? I don't do McDonald's maths

I am literally fixing punctuation all day that AI is too stupid to pick up. But it translates whole paragraphs most beautifully. I spend most of my working day in some state of dissociation, with an occasional laugh as I watch what I thought was civilization crumble before my eyes - as always, my work software wanted an update before starting a new project, and as ever more often, didn't work after the update. Nobody gives a shit about quality anymore and I guess we're all on drugs or suffer the consequences of long Covid, or both.

We used to and still have translators' associations, but most of them are stuck in the past. I was proving my skills as a translator by sitting at a desk and handwriting my translation while looking up stuff in physical dictionaries. They probably imagine that we are sitting in an office waiting for clients to walk in and hand us sheets of paper. It's still like this for a few of us, but the vast majority works as typing monkeys part of huge international teams and churns out translations by the meter, and can't afford neither the overpriced exam fees nor the inflated membership fees of organizations who do very little to support the positions of online translators.

So yes, we need a union. But I think it should be international, and best include all digital workers. We are the burger flippers of the digital world and deserve a living wage.

Now, as to AI, I would say the problem is that it's wasteful computation-wise, and that's why I'd rather not have it. I very much value reading texts by actual people, and look at images drawn by actual people and I am willing to pay for that. I want to use hand-knitted garments, hand-woven baskets and rugs, and not have sad people sit in factories 12 hours a day just so I can afford cheap plastic gadgets instead. So the other part of this would be to refuse consuming the cheap imitation of reality they offer after stealing everyone's works. Go treat yourself to the best and most beautiful, done by someone with passion and love for their work. Don't consume trash.

The problem in the case of translators, other digital workers, and unions, however is not really about AI versus brain, machine versus hand. It's about an economic system that forces us to work all day so we can survive. If you have to flip burgers, translate, dig potatos, play the violin 8 hours a day 5 days a week to survive, that's too much. Stop. Demand better.

I am a translator. Some decades ago the language industry introduced MT - some kind of precursor of LLM. The prices of translation jobs didn't change, and translators didn't lose their work entirely. But gradually we were offered more and more MTPE (euphemism for fixing the robot's shit) jobs, for a lower rate. Many older colleagues stayed with the few remaining translation jobs, young people starting out became "MTPE editors". These days there are a few translation jobs, many MTPE jobs, and more and more jobs in "AI output rating" - and the new generation will be working as an "AI linguistic assistant" or other such barbarity for even less money.

The tech isn't necessarily bad in itself, but what we have to wake up to is that tech is used to pay each generation after us a little less. We have to resist this and demand fair pay for fair work always - no matter if they want to call it 'translation', 'AI output review' or 'ertdfg sfdgs' - it has a price, and this price has to respect our dignity and enable a healthy life for us language workers and all other workers.

Hm, why can they not return the artifacts instead?

Is 'estaremos enviando' not just Brazilian Portuguese?

Could you just find a small group of people? Set up a weekly time for a talk. I understand the paying aspect can help stick with stuff, and you would hope that a trained professional can give better advice than some random person with ADHD, but online services rarely employ truly trained professionals, and my personal experience is that I have consistently disappointed when paying for a professional to give me health advice. It was always something I could have googled, and I was always still left with the problem of having to apply the solution myself - no trained professional can talk the ADHD away, it's still there, every day.

On the other hand I have received tons of relevant info and advice from fellow ASD/ADHD people sharing their experiences. Practical, day-to-day stuff to trick oneself into doing the things.

What do you think needs improvement in your life?

So you encountered, on the interwebz, one person you consider insane and now you would like to use the evidence of that encounter to whine about sth sth gender sth sth trans?

Mental illness where and by whose standards btw? Look my friend, I, who is nothing but a gender-unclear bog creature, will readily acknowledge:

Who's an edgy boi, who is? You are! 🙂

That would be the exact opposite from what OP describes, where a person goes "Oh woe me, all the weight of the world is on my shoulders and I get zero acknowledgment!"

I guess somewhere between the extremes is a healthy range of "My life sucks, and so does everybody else's."

Well I guess his monkey died, does that count?

I'm already enraged, please go home

My holy book here says it was me

Now imagine a room with an infinite number of computer chimps, at least one of them is going to make the machine work again. Another one is going to write the works of Shakespeare in soldering tin all over the motherboard, etc.

True. At same time, permitting angry music subcultures keeps the angry masses docile enough to not completely lose their shit. Engaging in angry music is a bit the same like writing angry political comments online - it feels engaged but changes little.

About pop music, I do respect that some people enjoy catchy tunes, easy melodies, dance-able rhythm as a kind of escapism. Listening to political comment can be exhausting, and music is, among other roles it can play, meant to be enjoyed.

That said, give me punk rock before pop anytime. Most shallow music these days makes my brain melt with the use of autotune alone before I even try to make out the lyrics.

Somewhere between

A bunch of incapable, spoilt, completely insane men-children with too much money think they can save the world.

and

A bunch of scam artists build an artificial human who they claim can talk and draw and reason just like a real human would.

For the CEOs of this brave new AI world this probably changes depending on their level of hangover and/or midlife crisis.

smitten

ADHD

should my focus travel that road

made me snort.

Also, thanks OP for this post, this is some great quality dense information useful stuff right here.

I'm autistic and animistic. I believe that there's conscience in all, and that we should handle other beings like we handle other persons: with respect and some caution. I grew up catholic, tended towards buddhism for a while, was non-religious for the longest time, and then started taking to animals and plants and landscape - some might say I lost my mind, but it felt more like finding it. It's a private practice of consciously having a stream of thought passing my mind as I meet other beings in my daily life, and trying to get to know them and notice them. A silent conversation with the non-human, I guess you could call it praying, only there's no worship, as I'm also anarchist. I communicate with whoever is happy to meet me eye to eye.

I'd say the whole thing is more pragmatic than religious. There's no church, no celebrations, I'm not part of a group, I'm just a private nutter talking to rocks because it suits me and works to maintain my wellbeing.

Or maybe the problem is that too many of us give more value to science instead of just believing in what we experience ourselves, even though scientists are only permitted to come up with the cautiously worded, much delayed truisms as above. But I am glad that science is catching up with what we know!