Everyone talks about how AI is ruining art and media and Swiss cheesing our brains (which is true) but I don't think we've delved deep enough into the actual data it's scraping on you, specifically.
We know the companies that make AI aren't in it to help you do homework and impress your boss. To start, they really want to know how to better sell you their sweatshop slop, which means they need to know as much as possible about You.
Let's begin with chatGPT. It's Google's software, so it already has your name, address, birthday, location, and search history. It knows where you go and what you buy. If you've ever been on the news (even "Theater troupe makes it to Regionals" or "LGBT Alliance Fundraiser a Huge Success!") it's there. Your emails. Your video calls. Your fucking calendar. It's all right there.
Now let's say you go on chatGPT - which already has reams of proof to back up who's asking - and posit some questions. "How do I know if I'm trans" "How to change your name" "How can I apply for disability benefits" "What does my autism diagnoses mean" "Best charity to donate to Palestine" etc etc. You want data? Baby, that's the good shit. But how to utilize it for financial gain?
What happens when the fascist government says: "We need a list of all trans / disabled / autistic / pro-palestine people. We think they'll really like Florida." Guess who received up to $200 million dollars each to contract with the US Department of Defense? Why, Google, Anthropic, and xAI of course!
You can't say you were hacked or that it was a one-time mistake. They know full well you bought that Bad Dragon dong, shipped to your home address and never returned. They know you searched for therapists who specialize in autism. They know you regularly donate to a starving Palestinian family. If you think these corporations are going to sit on that tasty, tasty data when there's a dollar to be made, you aren't seeing the big picture.
The fun part of my brain playing with language the way a parakeet plays with sound is I get to have some wild rides.
For some reason I like to start with the Steven Universe song "Giant Woman". Then I break and badger and genre swap and mashup until I... well, y'know, "play with them like dolls."
Giant Woman but it's got a dubstep drop right in the titular phrase and it's like "G-g-g-g-g-... GIANT WOMAN!"
Sometimes we wind up at "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody" from that Gatsby remake. But this time we're going to veer into "B-b-... Barbarian!" from Dave the Barbarian.
Heh. Barbarians. Raging. Yelling. Screaming.
Scream. Cream? Why are we at cream? Scream for ice cream?
Is it an American autism/ND thing to understand non fluent English speakers better than fully fluent speakers, while also struggling to process and/or speak it yourself despite being a fluent speaker?
For example, I had a brief conversation with a customer at my work about our different items on the menu. Their English was very broken and I wasn’t able to understand them at the speaker (our speaker is old and busted) until they pulled up to my window, and then I could understand them perfectly. I have a lisp when I speak and explained all the different items we have the best I could, and they seemed very happy that I was eager to help them and understood what they were trying to say. A couple of my coworkers got annoyed that it was taking so long and complained about the customer, but it was actually both of us struggling to help each other that made it take so long, and I apologized on the customer’s behalf because it takes me longer to process speech and audio feedback (gotta love having cAPD too).
On the other hand, when I have average conversations with neurotypicals who are fluent and have lived here since their ancestors from the 1400s (mine arrived in the late 1700s-early 1800s), I often struggle to understand and respond even though I’ve known the language since I was a baby, and I’m hyperlexic.
For me personally, I think I can understand non fluent speakers better because their dialect and speech patterns cater to my autistic brain better than fluent speakers, and I somewhat understand how hard it is to process or speak it.
Is this a common autism/ND thing? And does this happen to autistics who speak other languages?
Since I mostly communicate in English (since some years), my German [native language] degenerated increasingly.
Additionally, my English suffers as well, because I constantly switch between the languages in my mind - The bilingualism requires too much "brain power", and often I come up with mixed German-English word-gibberish. I don't even recognize I switch between the languages if I talk with a person who us unable to comprehend/speak English.
Additionally, when I construct my sentences far too many synonyms pop up in my mind - and too many options how to deliver my thoughts/put my thoughts into sentences occur simultaneously - which results in a kind of entangled soup clot - and I mix all these chains of thought together and it becomes utterly incomprehensible in the end.
What sort of phenomenon is that?
I know that my Working Memory is overloaded with all the junk of detail infos it receives from my Long-Term-Memory; And additionally my memory/ information processing becomes increasingly slow if the Working Memory is "approaching its limit". If my Working Memory is approaching its limit it is especially prone to errors. Then, due to the "error-correction loop" (I think it's a form of metacognition) it requires increasingly more time to process information. This, in (re)turn, feeds back to overchallenging the Working Memory additionally.
Unless I make it clear that I don't like something and that a post is negative, you can always assume that my posts are neutral to positive. I mean what I say unless stated otherwise. I'll make it clear when I'm sarcastic or joking. Tone tags like /nf (no force), etc. confuse me because usually it wouldn't even have occurred to me that someone could have felt forced by it. I take things literally and mean things literally. If I don't, I'll make that clear ☝🏼
FAQ:
Frequently Asked Questions (medical and personal)
I don't understand AAC users, please help
Autism levels, support needs, severity, and terminology:
What's the difference between nonverbal and nonspeaking?
"Master-master post" about autism and terminology
Archive:
Words for when you suddenly can't speak anymore (based on suggestions; list is closed now)
What is receptive language disorder?
Why people still talk about "severity" in autism (double link)
Nonverbal/nonspeaking masterpost
Communication with autistics who are nonverbal "from birth"
Functional communication doesn't mean that you are able to self advocate
Support Needs and Support Levels masterpost
What trying to reclaim the R slur when you don't have ID implies (the reblog)
The disability stall discourse
I use "severe" as a self-descriptor because that's what I was diagnosed with and therefore that's what people always refer to me as. I use it to indicate that my symptoms are different from most autistics on Tumblr and that I probably can't relate to most "extremely relatable autism posts" on here. I would never(!) force a label on someone, it's solely for myself.
You'll find my tag system and other things under the cut:
1. If I ever use too complex language for you, please tell me!
Writing TL;DRs and finding simpler ways to express myself is actually good for my language comprehension skills, so we’d both benefit! I think in pictures, not in words. Writing is like a jigsaw puzzle of things I once read, so if my language is complex it’s because the text jigsaw puzzle was. Reformulating things and finding new words for the pictures in my head could improve the ability to express myself :)
2. I don't expect anyone to "read between the lines" and extract "hidden meanings" here! I make it clear when I'm sarcastic or joking, and I will explicitly tell you when I want you to know that I'm angry or annoyed! ☝🏼In case I forget that, it's never your fault if you didn't get it, it's mine because I promised to make it clear but didn't.
3. I turn notifications off for bigger posts - if you want me to see a comment, tag me! (Edit: I was told that you don't see tags from muted posts either... So if you want me to see a comment, DM me!)
4. Radfems kindly don't follow - your beliefs contradict the beliefs of most of my followers in a way that I think at some point you'll simply start attacking each other and I wouldn't want that. Especially for those who are higher support needs. I think you'll understand that. I mean most of your beliefs contradict most of MY beliefs as well, but I simply don't engage in that, I have radfem content blocked.
5. Transableds, you shouldn't have the fact that you're transabled (for example transautistic) in your profile when following me, because I block people posting about that.
6. Don’t take it personally if I don’t follow back, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like you! There are so many people I’d like to follow back, but if I did my dash would be full of posts I’m not interested in...... Maybe that’s an autism thing too. Sometimes I follow “regulars” back after a while because I got used to them. And then the first thing I do is spending hours (hyperbole) blocking tags or words so that I don’t have to see 100 video game posts... 😄
7. I don’t soft block people - but sometimes I want to block a bot and mix up usernames... So if it should ever happen that you used to follow my blog, but suddenly realise you don’t anymore: That was an accident, feel free to re-follow! Kicking you off my follower list wasn’t me setting boundaries, it was me being absolutely confused! 😂
8. Tag system:
#anecdotes - positive posts about my family
#anon ask or #ask - block if you don't want to see my asks
#birdofmusic - block if you don't like random talks about bands and tastes in music
#faq - exactly what it says: frequently asked questions. Better read it before you send an ask
#me trying to be informative - more or less informative posts about autism or other disabilities
#naughty post - sometimes I'll tell dirty jokes or something. Nothing explicit of course. In case you struggle with topics like that, block this tag
#not autism - block if you're only here for the autism stuff
#rambling - whenever I just want to write down a thought or situation and it's not really important
#Sina being a hippie again - whenever I ramble about peace and love and happiness 🤷🏻
#sina's special interest - block if you don't like music theory and instruments like the piano
y’know now that i’m rewatching it, props to Buzzfeed unsolved for their closed captions. Whenever they have the scrolling yellow and blue deal, they go all out with the slang and the interruptions and any wheezes and extraneous audio
Sometimes when I glance at something with text on it, my brain only grabs half of the letters and then fills in the rest by association, or something. Anyway when I saw this dinosaur-shaped frozen snack at the grocery, I initially thought it said "fully sentient foods."
