Someone at an old job asked why I wanted to write up the meeting minutes for our team and I said 'i wanna control the narrative' and they were like 'what' and I pointed out that no one was gonna remember what we said in six months and so my interpretation of the meeting would dictate the assumed reality of what happened
"none of you ever send corrections when I offer the draft so y'all have consented to my version"
"we don't read that shit"
"you must trust me implicitly to create our shared reality that's so sweet"
That's how several coworkers decided I was a supervillain and how I learned several coworkers didn't understand record keeping as like a CONCEPT
One thing that worries me about the use of AI is whether or not it can worsen people's dementia and alzheimer's in the future. When my grandmother was first diagnosed, we got her math activity books. Now, my grandmother never had a formal education, but we did our best to keep her sharp, get her to do math and writing activity books, sudokus, playing board games that required some level of strategizing with her. Her family is prone to alzheimer's and dementia (both her siblings had it and deteriorated very very very quickly, which yeah, scares the shit out of me being her granddaughter) but she was the one whose mind lasted the longest, she only passed away two years ago, at 88, ten whole years after her initial diagnosis and sure, she had forgotten things, recipes and where she put her glasses and appointments, but she never forgot any of us, ten whole years in, she still remembered us. Now, this may have been luck, but doctors always said the constant mental work + companionship + medicine helped her a lot. So I'm thinking, these people who are now relying on AI for everything, from email-writing to thinking what's for dinner to casual conversations, I've even seen people rely on it to calculate what time they should leave their house if they need to be at a place at a specific time and their commute lasts X number of minutes. As if that's not... the simplest math operation possible? You shouldn't even need a calculator for that!!! Idk I don't know how long it'll take us to see the effects of this + exposure to brain-rotting short form content that is completely meaningless + people addicted to right-wing conspiracy style media. Idk I'm very worried. Please, read, read complicated books! Take up a book on philosophy and try to decipher it and make your own opinions on it, please buy a maths activity book and relearn how to do math, please get a hobby that involves lots of thinking and concentrating. PLEASE!!!
As a neurologist, I’ll give you the pretty name for it: cognitive reserve.
The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.
As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.
We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.
Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?
Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.
TLDR: Yes. From the knowledge we have today, AI will increase the number and severity of dementia cases.
this messed up vintage cat sewing pattern has tormented me since i saw it & like some other folks have done in that post - i tried my hand at tweaking the pattern to resemble the illustration (and my personal tastes) a little more. i've ended up with this, which i have only tested at a small scale and not this final version exactly (where i have done such things as further widening the cheeks and finalizing the leg shapes.) i bestow it upon you nice folks now 👐
go forth and make weird little beanbag kittens! pls show me if you do!
My first attempt! I made the pattern a bit smaller as I wanted it to be able to fit in a pocket, but then (accidentally but perhaps unavoidably) sewed it with a wider seam allowance than the resized pattern indicated, so the face is proportionally a bit too big and I lost some detail in the ear shape. I'm pleased with it though! It was fun to make something and to do some handsewing.
bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.
Stop hunting like it's 1692. You're not going to find Goody Proctor at the ChatGPT sacrament. What you're going to do is exactly what happened back then: harming people who've done nothing wrong.
On the subject of AI content, if you do actually want to spot it and know who is a charlatan, you need to do two things: First, you need to do your own reading and become knowledgeable on the subject so that you can spot bad information, or at least knowledgeable in how to test if information is bad. Second, you need to engage with and talk to people about their writing or their art.
AI can write both formally and informally, it will use slang or an oxford comma as directed without trouble. What it absolutely the fuck cannot do is tell the author why it chose to emphasize certain elements, or what message it was trying to convey with those choices and priorities.
People who actually did the work, and care about it, will be delighted to talk to you about the choices they made that led to the finished product, and someone who had AI slap bullshit together not only won't, but can't do that, because they didn't make any choices.
Look kids, I know you want a quick, easy answer. One that lets you prove to your peers that you're one of the 'good ones' by offering a way to show that you disapprove of the right things, and are against the things that are problematic. I do understand, because people have wanted this approval basically forever. It's baked into us as social creatures, and that makes it ripe for abuse.
The most prolific, and popular, form of that abuse will always be trying to trap you into a game of Us vs. Them. There will always be some group that it is 'correct' to disapprove of, and you will always be told by people who are more interested in your compliance than your beliefs that you must prove you're one of Us, and not one of Them, by showing how fervently and eagerly you disapprove of the Wrong Sorts.
The trap is that they do not care about the Wrong Sort, and will change it at the whims of popular opinion to be whatever or whoever is most convenient. Because of this, you will often find yourself agreeing that, yeah, that IS fucked up and you DO disapprove of what's being done. But the point isn't to change things for the better, its to make you step in line, and nod and agree that, yes, They are awful and you are one of the 'good ones', one of Us.
The only way you can actually resist this is to engage and build relationships where your opinion is valued instead of your agreement, and discussion and nuance is the expected standard.
Seriously this. Also, any teachers accusing their students of AI writing because it's "too well written" learn how your students write! Look over their shoulder for a bit while they work, walk around in class, check in with them. Hell, ask questions about their work too and why they chose certain words.
I'm an English teacher and had years of grammar classes, I'm not perfect but there's a good chance I'll also get accused of using AI if I try to write a good piece because I know the goddamn rules. I am able to write at CEFR level C2 because I HAVE to be able to as an "EFL" teacher (English as a foreign language).
I know my students. I know which ones have a high level of writing. I know who can write cohesively, I know who has an excellent vocab but terrible grammar. They use AI and I'll know. However, we also have a very simple deal: you're not being graded in this. You get feedback. Do not hand in AI things because you're wasting resources, not learning anything, then you waste my time by having to read it and either go "that's AI, because..." Or I don't notice and you get feedback that doesn't help you at all. So you either do the work yourself, or don't bother."
And now I have more time to give feedback to the students who do want to learn. I rarely get AI work now, and when I do it's noticeable because it's a student that usually doesn't hand anything in and I can go "hey Tim, what does "ubiquitous" mean? You don't know? How come you used it in your essay?" They pretty much always come clean that they used AI. I repeat the rule we made and then teach him and the class what the word means before going "so, Tim. I better see the word "ubiquitous" on your writing exam!"
Kind of saves the mood in the classroom, but also sets a clear expectation - you're here to learn and to apply what you learnt. Some actually do the work after that and let the word they were called out on come back again, it's fun to see. ❤️
I was 12 when the first of my siblings was born, so I have very vivid memories of the way my mother was excluded from a lot of spaces because people find children annoying.
If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.
My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.
"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.
"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.
"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.
"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.
"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.
What the fuck was our family supposed to do? Never go to the grocery store? Starve because strangers couldn't handle a toddler existing in public?
I am incredibly fucking disturbed at the way this post has brought people out of the woodwork who really want to tell me all about how hitting kids isn't actually abuse, how they think babies are the spawn of Satan, and how being confined to the home is an acceptable punishment for women who dare to have children. People have told me all about how they think children should be banned from airplanes, that I'm being inconsiderate to childfree people, that allowing crying babies in public is ableist against people with sensory issues (I have those, too, and so do many children, which is often WHY THEY ARE CRYING, jackass), and that people who have children are "irresponsible" and "selfish."
I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)
One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)
Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."
Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.
Oh my god, apparently there is a business convention next to Fanfest and someone heard women losing their fucking minds. Turned around and found graying business women crowding around an Emet-Selch cosplayer as he explained his Ascian sigil prop.
Emet-Selch pulls all adults from every generation. Ishikawa's design is too powerful.
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
