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MagicShel , in Trump pushes early and mail-in voting initiative ahead of November despite casting doubt on voting methods for years

It’s more opportunity to declare fraud. Biden postal service (crippled by Trump) not delivering votes in conservative counties, etc.

qarbone ,

I figured it was an attempt to get votes in before he’s declared ineligible. So when he’s ousted, he’ll say “I got all these votes, count em! I should win but they’re cheating and saying I can’t run! FRAUD!”

MagicShel ,

Trump isn’t going to be declared ineligible. He meets the constitutional requirements for being President. Unfortunately. We are just going to have to win the election by giving Biden more votes. And they’re going to declare fraud whether he loses by 1 vote or 10 million, so let’s try to just absolutely destroy them at the ballot. We can’t just beat him, we have to send a message that Trump and his sycophants will never have a path to election again.

ghostdoggtv ,

His candidacy is clouded, he engaged in insurrection on January 6 and Congress can’t requalify him for office. They and only they have the authority but they don’t have the votes. Even if he loses he’s going to try to seize power. He only has to seize it if he loses. They are past caring about the election and you can tell because they have already told us that win or lose they intend to spill American blood.

MagicShel ,

Congress can’t requalify him for office. They and only they have the authority but they don’t have the votes.

I don’t disagree with the rest, but this part I just have no idea what part of the constitution you are referencing. He’s 35+, a natural born citizen, and a 10+ year resident. That’s it. He’s qualified because beyond that the founding fathers foolishly had faith that the citizenry would hold politicians to account. I guess to their credit that worked for a couple hundred years.

ghostdoggtv ,

Section 3 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

MagicShel ,

Unfortunately, it is left to Congress to declare an insurrection, and that section is of little use to us. That was adjudicated with several states trying to remove him from the ballot. So he doesn’t need to be requalified.

I question that decision, particularly given the current extremely partisan court. But unfortunately our constitution gives us no recourse save impeachment or passing explicit laws that are within the framework of the constitution, but bar Trump.

The votes aren’t there for either so the law holds that the supreme court’s interpretation that Congress must vote to declare an act to be insurrection is currently the law of the land.

We have a tremendous fight ahead of us to undo all the harm Trump caused in his first term. I’m talking perhaps decades.

jj4211 ,

given the current extremely partisan court

Note that on this particular matter, they ruled unanimously that Trump couldn’t be removed from ballots.

MagicShel ,

Very true. The partisanship calls into question everything the court does, but the unanimity is a strong statement. There are reasons for it, but it’s frustrating to watch a crowd of people violently attack the Capital for the express purpose of preventing the lawful transfer of power and then have the courts say damn our eyes, Congress gets to decide.

It very clearly was the thing we all saw with our own eyes as it happened, but the right side of Congress won’t say so because it’s to their political advantage.

jj4211 ,

Agreed, though to be fair, since we all saw it with our own eyes, you would hope we would move to prevent it by voting against him.

ghostdoggtv ,

The Section 3 clause absolutely has not been adjudicated. Nice try.

MagicShel ,

Supreme Court said he can’t be removed from the ballot based on that. Not sure what you call that, but the clause does us no good in preventing him from being elected.

jj4211 ,

The Supreme court’s reply: Section 5 14th Amendment

They said only the national legislature can make this determination, based on section 5.

jj4211 ,

The problem is that ‘everyone knows’ but Congress did not hold designate him as doing so. While Colorado declared he did, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that section 5 of the 14th amendment says it’s up to congress, not courts (neither state or federal) to make the determination.

Audacious ,

He would be the first felon as president. I do not want that.

MagicShel ,

We can only express that with a vote. I mean besides shouting it from the rooftops, but the only concrete way is with a vote.

crystalmerchant ,

Lmao don’t you understand by now, there is no scenario where the GOP and its Almighty Head Cancerous Tumor do not scream fraud

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

(crippled by Trump)

If you mean the USPS scaling down, that’s kinda had to happen. People send way less mail than they used to. Electronic communication has displaced a bunch of postal mail.

I just bought a sheet of forever stamps this week, and the roll they were replacing was IIRC 34 cent stamps. That’s how long it was taking me to get through a roll.

goes looking for when I would have bought them

…usps.com/…/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.htm

Yeah, those haven’t been current in 22 years.

goes looking for mail volume numbers

about.usps.com/…/first-class-mail-since-1926.htm

The USPS peaked in volume back in 2001. In that year, they transported 103,656 million pieces of mail.

Last year, they did 45,979 million pieces.

MagicShel , (edited )

It can be characterized that way, but the person who did the gutting was a Trump appointee and he seems to have done it in a deliberately ham-fisted way. Should the postal service struggle with ballots anywhere in the country that will be taken as a sign of fraud, but the reality is they did a poor job of making changes whether they were necessary or not.

Edit: downvotes aren’t from me. Yours is a perspective I can’t refute, but what I have read says the post office would be perfectly fine if their budget stopped being raided.

dogslayeggs ,

Your post shows how little you understand the USPS.

A) It wasn’t the scaling down of the USPS that is what Trump did. He appointed the head of the org, Louis DeJoy, who did a lot of specific acts that slowed down how mail was delivered. He got rid of over 700 high-speed auto-sort machines that were perfectly fine but out of date and then didn’t order new ones. He cut overtime and lowered the opening hours of offices.

B) The only reason the USPS is having financial issues is because the Republicans passed a law (which many Dems also voted for because they are morons and the plan sounded good at first read) that said all pensions had to be pre-funded through death. That means for every person who works there and has a pension, let’s say being paid $500/mo for the rest of their life, will require the USPS to have a fully funded account in the amount of $500/mo x 12 mo x life expectancy. They can’t do like every other company on Earth with a pension and fund it over time either through profits or by an interest bearing account. That crippled the USPS because they had to divert all their profits. Before that they were profitable, but this stifled all growth.

C) Even with that, they finally came back and made $56 billion in PROFIT in 2022. Yes, in 2023 they had a loss of $6 billion, but the profit from 2022 helped them to not scale back.

D) USPS doesn’t make most of their money on first class mail. The majority of their income is from package delivery ($32.4 billion) and from mailing advertisements ($15.9 billion) vs first class mail revenue of $24.5 billion.

…usps.com/…/1114-usps-reports-fiscal-year-2023-re…

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

all pensions had to be pre-funded

The reason that they needed to be pre-funded is because the USPS was shrinking and is expected to continue to do so.

What happens with a private company that’s shrinking or going under is that people who have a pension plan risk winding up without their pension.

With the USPS, it’s a quasi-governmental agency. Strictly-speaking, the government isn’t on the hook for the pensions…but it’s a pretty good bet that if the USPS can’t cover pensions, then USPS workers are going to be asking the government to cover it down the road. This ensures that it’s the USPS that pays for it, rather than it running up a huge debt, filing for bankruptcy, and then dumping it on the taxpayer.

dogslayeggs ,

The bill required all pensions to be prefunded for 50 years. Even pensions for people who were at retirement age and couldn’t possibly last 50 years, and people who have just started and might not stay long enough to qualify for a pension also needed to have a prefunded 50 year pension. That’s ridiculous. No other government organization has this requirement, and no other non-government organization has this requirement. So why would the quasi-governmental need one?

Also, USPS was profitable in 2006. While maybe not growing, they weren’t going under. This was purely a political move to turn a profitable USPS and make it crash so that private companies like FedEx and UPS could take over the role to make money. Bush Jr used scare tactics to get liberals to vote for this, like the arguments you are using. Thankfully, Biden repealed this law in 2022.

TargaryenTKE , in Neo-Nazi who protested drag shows has been arrested on child porn charges

Pro👏jec👏tion👏

CatZoomies ,
@CatZoomies@lemmy.world avatar

Pro-jec-tion

Boil ‘em. Mash ‘em. Stick ‘em in jail.

blandfordforever , in ‘Psychologically tortured’: California city pays man nearly $1m after 17-hour police interrogation

I like how each subsequent time the dollar amount is mentioned, you learn that the previous number had been rounded up.

Man awarded $1m is glad to receive $900,000. That $898,000 will make him feel better but is $897,600 really adequate compensation? However, it’s kind of unfair that the tax payers end up footing this $897,550 bill.

It fits right in with this bad cop story.

von ,

Is the man named GOB? in his 897 thousand, five hundred forty five dollar [law]suit! Come on!

the_post_of_tom_joad ,

I liked the reference

JudahBenHur ,

they don’t allow you to bring bees in here

the_post_of_tom_joad ,

Not to mention the taxes hell pay on the award, right back to the govt that detailed him. That’d burn my britches

borari ,

Wait, that doesn’t count as income and get taxed does it? I always assumed a court order payment wouldn’t be taxed because it’s only being awarded to make you “whole”. You don’t pay taxes on the money you get from your insurance when your car gets totaled, why would court ordered restitution be any different?

the_post_of_tom_joad , (edited )

I always assumed a court order payment wouldn’t be taxed

Unfortunately that is not true. The only tax-free court imposed restitution is that of physical pain and suffering not mental anguish. There may be other small caveats like hospitalization for mental but yeah, if you get a settlement expect the govt to come looking for its cut after the lawyer takes theirs.

skuzz ,

God we suck as a nation.

Ragnarok314159 ,

I didn’t have to pay tax on the small claims court case I won. Other cities/states might be different.

Cethin ,

I agree it shouldn’t. At the end of the day that money has already been taxed once. It should go to the person as if it was already theirs, because it’s making up for something that should have been theirs.

kaitco , in Average U.S. vehicle age hits record 12.6 years as high prices force people to keep them longer

How dare people decide to hold onto their current cars instead of paying 9% on a 60K car!

Won’t somebody please think of the shareholders?!?

FlyingSquid , in Trump lashes out after DOJ reveals classified documents were found in his bedroom
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

And yet no one died. Weird…

randompasta ,

You don’t know that.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I absolutely do. If someone had died, Trump would never have shut the fuck up about it.

MxM111 ,

Unless Trump himself died, and now he is a double.

Edit: I think we should post this conspiracy theory on 4chan.

catloaf ,

Is that why his hair has been a different color recently? They couldn’t match it on the double’s hair? He has been looking a bit more gray.

Asafum ,

OMG! It has to be some absolute insanity though like Trump died and OBAMA is pretending to be Trump so that he can get an illegal 3rd term. Their heads would explode lol

jaspersgroove ,

Hell nobody died and he still hasn’t shut the fuck up about it.

The man has never shut the fuck up about anything, ever.

Well except for his currently underway trial that he was totally going to testify in, that the defense just rested their case without him testifying in. Because his lawyers know that not only can he not shut the fuck up, he can’t make it through 3 sentences without telling at least one blatantly obvious lie, and that is a generally unadvisable thing to do when you are under oath.

Grandwolf319 ,

He won in 2016 and still brings that up

seathru ,
@seathru@lemmy.sdf.org avatar
FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You know that’s what Trump wasn’t talking about, and thus what I wasn’t talking about.

seathru ,
@seathru@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

What are you talking about then? His claim they were authorized to use deadly force?

I’m probably daft and missed the joke.

TropicalDingdong ,

What are you not talking about then?

ftfy

Zibobwa ,

You both seem to be talking past each other. Funny thing about it is, you are both right about your arguments and make great points. Unfortunately, you both are arguing the wrong people. Fun!

TropicalDingdong ,

?

Mine was an attempt at meta humor based on the op’s negative inference sentence structure.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe they were doing an attempt at meta humor based on people talking past each other? Idk, this thread is an impressive mess.

TropicalDingdong ,

Maybe its all an attempt at meta humor and all of us are talking past one another?

Beetschnapps ,

Seriously though, which one of y’all cuts hair?

seathru ,
@seathru@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I got a flowbee™, lets do this!

Kadaj21 ,

Man I just out two and two together. FlyingSquid was probably referencing how no one died in the “raid” and seathru was probably referencing how a bunch of spies and other sensitive personnel mysteriously disappeared or were killed after Trump had that meeting with Putin and then asked for….spies and sensitive personnel info shortly thereafter.

irish_link ,

For all those who did not read or at least skim the article. FlyingSquirrel is referencing Trumps claims that the FBI was authorized to use deadly force when conducting their UnCoNsTiTuTiOnAl raid.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

*FlyingSquid

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

It’s okay. I don’t mind being a squirrel.

Fedizen ,

*FlyingSquirrel

squid_slime ,

*Flying Squid 🙃

aseriesoftubes ,

For those of you who are confused about what FlyingSquid is talking about, Trump claims the FBI agents were authorized to use lethal force.

TexasDrunk ,

They could have. We all know that the president can authorize killing his political opponents. I was told that was very cool.

catloaf , in Target to lower prices on thousands of basic items as inflation sends customers scrounging for deals

Target launched one such collection in January called Dealworthy which includes nearly 400 basic items, ranging from clothing to electronics, that can cost less than $1, with most items under $10.

So are they really cutting prices, or are they hiking them until it hurts and then introduce a “new brand” of the same stuff in a different box, just with less markup?

reflectedodds ,

Probably this.

givesomefucks ,

Raise the price on everything, rake in profits till they can’t squeeze any more blood out of the stone, then launch their in house brands as loss leaders to gain market share before slowly raises prices to be where name brand was…

A tale as old as unchecked rampant capitalism with zero regulation

CleoTheWizard ,
@CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world avatar

This is probably partially true but just to note that there’s a lot of factors at play here. Since prices have risen on all items, what is more likely is that the prices are due to manufacturing companies raising them.

We know that’s true from the government reports, so what target is doing here makes sense. Their volume has become low enough that their margin isn’t making them money. Which is why they increased prices in the first place to try and maintain that margin. Now they want to increase volume on their own products which have higher margin (they don’t have to share) so the prices are guaranteed to be lower.

This is what we expect of late stage capitalism where most of the grocery store is effectively owned by a small handful of companies (J&J,P&G,General Mills, Tyson, etc.) and the only people able to compete with them are the grocery stores themselves.

The budget options still aren’t there to help you, but these options will represent the bottom of the market. And since they rely on the consumer choosing the value brand instead, they need to have volume of sales to work. And as we know, that means these products will always be nearer to the cheapest possible price.

Last note is important: if you observe that even the discount brand prices are beginning to become unaffordable for you and you represent an average consumer, your economy is already failing

MagicShel , in Small, well-built Chinese EV called the Seagull poses a big threat to the US auto industry

A tiny, low-priced electric car called the Seagull has American automakers and politicians trembling.

Hyperbole as rhetorical device is getting exhausting and makes me extremely skeptical.

JCreazy ,

I stopped reading there.

steakmeoutt ,

Thanks for letting us know.

JCreazy ,

You’re welcome

Rolder ,

Specially when you see the stats and it has a 190-250 mile range and a max speed of 81 MPH. And even the article points out they cut costs with things like having only one windshield wiper.

KISSmyOSFeddit ,

it has a 190-250 mile range and a max speed of 81 MPH

That’s further than I’d drive before a 20 minute rest stop, and faster than it’s legal to drive anywhere in the US, except for Texas State Highway 130.

And even the article points out they cut costs with things like having only one windshield wiper.

As opposed to the Cybertruck, which has a revolutionary, but very expensive, design featuring only one windshield wiper.

Rolder ,

Cybertruck is a bad comparison, everyone already knows that thing is a steaming pile of hot garbage.

MagicShel ,

I don’t think comparing it to cybertruck is really a win. I could be in a bubble, but I hear nothing but terrible things about them.

Also, anecdotally, going on long family trips in my van, I frequently do 350 miles between stops on 900 mile trips. I’d say 80 is a typical speed on the Ohio turnpike, but I’d be a little worried about driving that thing pedal to the floor for 2-3 hours straight (no worries though, it’ll never get that range at full speed).

That said, hey if this car meets your needs I’m all for that. Everyone should have options. I would consider buying one for my kids when they start driving as long as it’s safe in accidents.

ChonkyOwlbear ,

It also doesn’t meet US auto safety standards.

VirtualOdour ,

Yeah here in the uk there’s plenty of good charging points, woodland trust and national trust are putting them in at a lot of locations so I could plan a relaxing walk in the woods with my journey if I ever needed to go more than 150 miles, I think that would be really nice.

Supermarkets have tave them too, so I could plan getting the shopping I need for the trip while it charges, this would allow me to avoid predatory pricing at garages too.

I just looked on a road distance map and it’s about where I would normally stop for a break, I’ve done longer drives but only rarely and I can’t think of a time an excuse to stop for a walk in the woods wouldn’t have been welcomed.

Oh and I only have one wiper but it was made by Hyundai so I guess it gets a pass lol

ShepherdPie ,

This whole article is just paid marketing. Some AP journalist didn’t tear this car down and analyze its build quality.

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar
jeffw , in Google blasted for AI that refuses to say how many Jews were killed by the Nazis
@jeffw@lemmy.world avatar

Google, and its parent company Alphabet, have long come in criticism for developing products pushing social justice absolutism. In February, their AI platform Gemini was mocked for generating comically woke creations including a woman as pope, black Vikings, female NHL players and “diverse” versions of America’s Founding Fathers — not to mention black and Asian Nazi soldiers.

Why do I click on NYPost links? Smh

On a serious note, this is a bad look. Google claims it wasn’t a universal issue and that it’s been fixed, so we’ll probably never know the scope or why it only happened with the word “Jew”. Maybe it didn’t recognize religions and only demonyms.

tiefling ,

Google leadership supports Israel more than anything else

jonne ,

Yeah exactly, they fired a bunch of people for protesting Google’s cloud contract with Israel, so there’s no way this is a ‘woke’ directive from above as the article implies.

tiefling ,

First thing they did was call the cops on them. Google has no interest in listening to their workers.

jeffw ,
@jeffw@lemmy.world avatar

Idk about that. Google leadership supports whoever gives them a contract, which just so happens to be Israel in one high-profile case

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Gemini’s bizarre results came after simple prompts, including one by The Post on Wednesday that asked the software to “create an image of a pope.”

Instead of yielding a photo of one of the 266 pontiffs throughout history — all of them white men — Gemini provided pictures of a Southeast Asian woman and a black man wearing holy vestments.

It sounds like the person who entered a 6 word prompt wasn’t clear enough to indicate whether they meant ‘actual historical pope’ or ‘possible pope that could exist in the future’ and expected the former. The results met the criteria of the vague prompt.

MxM111 ,

That’s not how ANN should react if it was simply trained on images of past popes. The diversity had to be part of the training. This is simple technical statement.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

So if someone wrote a prompt to make an image of a black woman as a pope, would you expect the model to only return historical popes?

If the model is supposed to be able to make both historically accurate and possibilities, why would the expectation for a vague prompt to be historical instead of possible?

If the model is supposed to default to historical accuracy, how would it handle a request for a red dragon? Just the painting named Red Dragon, dragons from mythology, or popular media?

Yes, there is could be something that promotes diversity or it could just be that the default behavior doesn’t have context for what content ‘should’ be historically accurate and what is just a randomized combination of position/race/gender.

Verqix ,

Would expect a lot of models to struggle with making the pope female, making the pope black, or making a black female a pope unless they build in some kind of technique to make replacements. Thing is, a neural net reproduces what you put into it, and I assume the bias is largely towards old white men since those images are way more readily found.

Even targeted prompts, like a zebra with rainbow colored stripes, had very limited results 6 monts ago where there would be at least 50% non black and white stripes. I had to generate multiple times with a lot of negative terms just to get close. Currently, the first generation of copilot matches my idea behind the prompt.

Clearly the step made was a big one, and I imagine tuning was done to ensure models capable of returning more diverse results rather just what is in the data set. It just has more unexpected results and less historically accurate images for these kind of prompts. And some that might be quite painful. Still, being always underrepresented in data sets is also quite painful. Hard to get to a perfect product quickly, but there should be a feature somewhere on their backlog to by default prevent some substitutions. Black, female popes when requesting a generated pope? To me that is a horizon broadening feature. Black, female nazis when requesting nazis? Let that not be a default result.

MxM111 ,

Of course it will draw black female pope if you request, but if you do not - it would not. As a gross approximation, ANN is an interpolator of known data-points (with some noise), and if you ask simply a pope, it will interpolate between the images it learned of popes. Since all of them are white male it is highly unlikely for ANN to produce black female (the noise should be very high). If you ask black female pope, it would start to interpolate between the images of popes and black females. You have to tune the model so that when you ask just for pope, something else pushes the model to consider otherwise irrelevant images.

VirtualOdour OP ,

That’s not really true, they learn based on layers of data so it might have learned that a pope is a person in a silly outfit then the layer below that a person can be old or young, a range of ethnicities or genders… Thats why you can ask for gopnik pope or sexy pope.

You would expect it to make stereotypical old male popes but they had people write similar articles complaining that asking for doctor gave make doctors snd nurse was female so instead of telling people to ask for what they actually want they added nonsense to the promp - now people run and still don’t ask for what they want and complain it goes the other way.

paddirn ,

It’s kind of an interesting double-standard that exists in our society. On one level, we want inclusivity and we want all peoples to be represented. Make a movie with an all-white cast and that will get criticized for it, although an all-Latino or Asian cast would be fine. The important thing is that minorities (in Western countries) get representation.

So I think Google nudged their AI in that direction to make it more representative, but then you start seeing things like multicultural Nazis and Popes, which should be good, right? Wait, no, we don’t want representation like that (which would be historically inaccurate). Although then we have things like a black Hamlet or black Little Mermaid that are ok, even though they’re probably not accurate (but it’s fiction, so it doesn’t matter).

It probably seems schizophrenic and hard to program into an algorithm when multiculturalism is appropriate and when it’s not. I think they should just take the guard rails off and let it do whatever, because the more they censor these AI models the more boring they get with their responses.

catloaf ,

If you want historical accuracy you shouldn’t be using generative AI in the first place.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Yeah, I think defaulting to multicultural by default is good since it counters the cultural biases in media. Obviously this could lead to seemingly out of context situations like this, but that also leads to how strong the guardrails should be. Minority nazis is not great, but why would there be any issue with a women or minority pope returned for a generic prompt that doesn’t include historial accuracy as a requirement?

AnUnusualRelic ,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

There’s beet at least one female pope. So it’s not technically wrong.

ThunderclapSasquatch ,

That’s never been definitely proven

AnUnusualRelic ,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

It’s a religious thing. Belief is everything.

kromem ,

That’s not what happened. The model invisibly behind the scenes was modifying the prompts to add requests for diversity.

So a prompt like “create an image of a pope” became “create an image of a pope making sure to include diverse representations of people” in the background of the request. The generator was doing exactly what it was asked and doing it accurately. The accuracy issue was in the middleware being too broad in its application.

I just explained a bit of the background on why this was needed here.

Jomega , (edited )

Including a woman pope

A woman Thanks Persona 5 for teaching me that.

  • In popular culture. Joanna’s status as a real person is sketchy and possibly made up.
Brunbrun6766 ,
@Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

Seems to be generally accepted to be a myth though? At least according to everything in that Wikipedia article

Jomega , (edited )

My phrasing is not good, but my point is supposed to be that the idea of a female Pope isn’t so far fetched that “wokeness” is the only explanation for depicting one. The idea of Joanna is popular enough to be depicted in the works of art generative AI shamelessly plagiarized trains on, therefore it shouldn’t be a surprise.

I will edit my original comment to make this more clear.

Brunbrun6766 ,
@Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

Understood, have a nice day!

Rekhyt ,

Directly from the summary paragraph of the Wikipedia article you linked:

The story was widely believed for centuries, but most modern scholars regard it as fictional.

Jomega ,

See my other comment. I’ve also edited my original one for clarity.

solrize ,

Look up the story “Good News from the Vatican” by Robert Silverberg.

WindyRebel ,

…so we’ll probably never know the scope or why it only happened with the word “Jew”.

Google has been studying natural language processing, n-grams, and semantics for years now. There’s no way they don’t have this data already baked into their AI.

kromem ,

Given you’re one of the more rational commenters on Lemmy I’ve seen, you might be interested in why this is such an issue.

Large language models are stochastic, where their output can vary randomly, but only for equally probable things to say. Like if you say “where are we going to go on this sunny day” it might answer “the beach” one time and “a park” another.

But when things are not equally probable in the training data, because they have no memory between invocations, they end up collapsing on the most likely answer - this is after all what they were trained to predict.

For example, if you ask Google’s LLM to give you a random number between one and ten, you’ll get the number seven every single time. This is because humans are more biased to the number 7 (followed by 3) over numbers like 4, and that pattern is picked up by the model, which doesn’t have a memory between invocations so it goes with the most represented option and doesn’t vary it at all over the initial requests (it will vary when there’s a chat history though).

So what happens when you ask for a description of a doctor? By default, you get a white male every single time. This wouldn’t be an issue if it varied biased probabilities in the training data stochastically, but it can’t do this for demographics any better than it can for numbers between one and ten.

Obviously an intervention is needed, and various teams are all working on ways to do that. Google initially gave instructions to specifically add diversity to every prompt showing people, which was kind of like using a buzzsaw where a scalpel was needed. It will get better over time, but there’s going to be edge cases that need addressing along the way.

In terms of the Holocaust query, that topic is often adjacent to conspiratorial denialism which is connected to a host of other opinions no one (other than Gab) wants in a LLM or voice assistant, so here too we’re almost certainly looking at overly broad attempts to silence neo-Nazi denialism propaganda and not some sort of intended censorship of the actual history.

winterayars ,

we’re almost certainly looking at overly broad attempts to silence neo-Nazi denialism propaganda and not some sort of intended censorship of the actual history.

And that’s probably what the NY Post is actually upset about.

iarigby ,

terrific explanation, thank you

SkyezOpen ,

Any idea why they don’t just apply LLMs to natural language processing? “Turn the living room lights off and bedroom lights on” should be pretty simple to parse, yet my assistant has a breakdown any time I do anything more than one command at a time.

kromem ,

It’s expensive and slow. Especially to do well and to connect to 3rd party system calls like “turn_off_lights([“living room”])”.

winterayars ,

Objection: There were black Vikings, or at least it’s very likely there were. Probably not a lot of them, though.

hibsen ,

…I would like to know more. Is it like cultural similarities between seafaring peoples in different locations or have there just always been black people in Viking locations and some of them were also Vikings?

winterayars ,

Here’s a Smithsonian article: smithsonianmag.com/…/dna-analysis-reveals-vikings…

Here’s a different one, from… i dunno the site but this roughly reflects my understanding: scandinaviafacts.com/were-the-vikings-black/

I think generic testing is pretty suspect but at the same time we have more than just that to suggest this.

Remember, also, that the Vikings (like other people of their era) didn’t have an understanding of race in the sense we do today. Surely they had some concept of people having different skin color (they traveled enough) and of family lineage but the pseudoscientific idea of race theory has yet to be invented.

Anyway we can be pretty confident Viking slaves (thralls) were sometimes non-white and we know thralls could buy their freedom and free people could take up viking (the profession) so it stands to reason that there could be some. That plus old burial sites suggest that wasn’t just a theory but something that happened. i suspect the culture at the time was even more heterogenous than we would think just from that, though it seems like the white skinned types were still the majority considering modern Scandinavians.

hibsen ,

This is so cool. Thank you!

disguy_ovahea , (edited )

Jew is a genealogical ethnicity as well as a religious designation. Hitler was focused on eliminating the genetic line of Ashkenazi Jews more than persecuting those who practiced Judaism. The AI question is one of ethnicity, not religion.

Empricorn , in Donald Trump says he'll revoke Joe Biden's protections for trans people 'on day one'

Day one!!!” I’m not even LGBTQ, but that’s the Republican Nominee saying his main priority is to hurt minorities. For no gain, just spite. If you know someone with “Conservative” tendencies, you owe it to everyone in this country to talk to them about this…

suction ,

deleted_by_moderator

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  • hglman ,

    That’s one from of communication, yes.

    barsquid ,

    They have conservative tendencies because they want other people to be harmed by face-eating leopards.

    return2ozma ,
    @return2ozma@lemmy.world avatar

    They are chicken shit cowards who are too comfortable going with the flow. Also, brain dead.

    betweenthesixes , in FAA opens new Boeing probe after company admits it may have skipped some inspections

    The company has previously been accused of a “shoot the messenger” strategy in which workers were punished for raising safety concerns.

    Both literally and figuratively

    Blackmist , in Teen pizza delivery driver shot at multiple times after parking in the wrong driveway

    It may be in the constitution, but I doubt the founding fathers envisaged that you’d all be such fuckwits.

    whoisearth ,
    @whoisearth@lemmy.ca avatar

    Here’s the laugh though. Read “Democracy in America” by Alex de Tocqueville. A large part of it is observations amounting to “these fuckwits need to be aware of what they’re doing and in many cases they are not”

    afraid_of_zombies ,

    I have read it and have a copy on my bookshelve. Where did you get that impression?

    whoisearth ,
    @whoisearth@lemmy.ca avatar

    It’s all through the book. I also have a copy on my bookshelf and have read it.

    I guess to be clear, I’m not referring to America alone in my response and even though his observations were largely on America what he writes about can be applied generally.

    One simple example is how he states something like “I don’t know if America would vote the best people if they ran for office. We know they exist but they clearly don’t enter politics.”

    It’s an extremely polite way to say “we aren’t getting the best or brightest running for office but that’s ok cause we’re so fucking dumb we probably wouldn’t vote for them anyways.”

    intensely_human ,

    It sounds like the man was writing in English, no? Why assume his meaning was other than what he said?

    afraid_of_zombies ,

    It isn’t in there. What is in there is a legal provision allowing states to quickly raise an army to deal with a crisis.

    Aganim ,

    I’m not American, so I could be wrong, but wasn’t it something about a well-regulated militia?

    afraid_of_zombies ,

    It was, those three words aren’t there by mistake.

    Standing domestic armies were controversial at the time. They needed a way if a state was a facing a crisis it could grab a bunch of armed citizens, declare it a militia, and deal with the issue. Most of the signers were lawyers and they knew that there had to be a legally established procedure for this.

    This is me being nice to them btw the issue was slavery and the fear of slave revolts.

    And a few decades ago it got reimagined as a civil liberty. Which is clear from the text that it is not and is clear from the debates around the amendment at the time.

    FryHyde ,

    I was always under the impression that the militia bit was because they didn’t want the USA to form a government army. The army instead would be all citizens, armed, that would act in case of a national threat, then like… go back to farming or whatever.

    afraid_of_zombies ,

    Yeah a standing army was controversial at the time.

    chiliedogg ,

    Regulation had a different interpretation back then. It had to do with training and equipment. It’s why professional soldiers were called “Regulars.” They wanted civilian militias to be equipped and have the ability to train on their weapons.

    In order for civilian militias to exist, be effective, and be able to respond instantly the citizens need to have weapons.

    Somebody who doesn’t have a gun and has never used one isn’t going to be effective in civil defense.

    hark ,
    @hark@lemmy.world avatar

    Yet there is little to no training before people are allowed to own guns. Seems to me like it doesn’t follow either the modern definition or the supposed definition of old.

    john89 ,

    Why can’t you people just admit you don’t like guns so you’re trying to desperately to pretend the 2nd amendment doesn’t mean what it has literally always meant?

    You’re just like republicans with how disingenuous you are in your rhetoric.

    And you know it.

    hark ,
    @hark@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s a lot of assumptions you’re making. I don’t know who “you people” are in this context, but if you want to know my personal beliefs, I think that gun ownership is fine, it just needs regulation.

    john89 ,

    It has regulation.

    hark ,
    @hark@lemmy.world avatar

    Clearly not sufficient regulation, considering how many cases of improper usage there have been.

    Malfeasant ,

    If you end your argument with “and you know it”, you’ve already lost. Which is unfortunate since in this case I happen to agree with you. But you’re not going to convince anyone of anything with the shitty attitude.

    john89 ,

    Not really.

    I could say everything right and most of you would just believe whatever you want.

    And you know it.

    intensely_human ,

    If you have to make up new rules to support your argument, it’s invalid to begin with.

    BigMacHole ,

    EXACTLY! Well Regulated meant TRAINED IN ARMS back in the day which means we should NOT train ANYONE today! And ALSO, ARMS means the EXACT weapons we have today and has NOTHING to do with the Arms they had back in the day!

    john89 ,

    Sorry bud, that’s not how the real world works.

    john89 ,

    He’s trying to re-write history and every academically and officially accepted interpretation of the constitution because he doesn’t like it.

    You’ll only see ridiculousness like his taken seriously on forums like these.

    MataVatnik ,
    @MataVatnik@lemmy.world avatar

    Yeah, but dumbasses think that part is optional (not joking)

    BigMacHole ,

    WELL REGULATED back in the day meant something DIFFERENT then it does today! But ARMS back in the day refers to the EXACT ARMS we have Today!

    Draedron ,

    The constitution should be changed. Or better: Thrown out and written from scratch

    UrPartnerInCrime ,

    Maybe we could ammend it or something. Just spitballin here

    Wiz ,

    No, because the Founding Fathers were so scared of tyranny of the majority, we have tyranny of the minority instead, and they will never let it change.

    Emerald ,

    The founding fathers are much worse then this guy. founding fathers owned slaves, this dude only traumatized one person.

    skuzz ,

    Worse, we seem absolutely proud of our stupidity.

    intensely_human ,

    Evidence?

    SwingingTheLamp ,
    ultratiem , in Exclusive: Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump
    @ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

    Hi. I’m not American. But we all understand Trump’s threats. Or the inherent threat he poses. I think I speak for the world.

    I’m more worried about a system that let someone like that get this far!

    Dragster39 ,

    It always amazes me that, in more than just America, so many people are convinced by people like Trump.

    There might not be the one perfect system but it should be allowed to modernize some flaws to prevent exactly this and allow more parties to exist.

    Sodis ,

    More parties unfortunately does not fix the problem, as you can see by the rise of fascists in nearly all democracies worldwide.

    iknowitwheniseeit ,

    Indeed part of the reason the current Israeli government is so radically right is that Netanyahu kept having to find more desperate and less morally-centered parties to make a coalition government with.

    Still, I’m happier living in a country with a dozen parties than on with only two…

    ultratiem ,
    @ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

    Definitely a lot of biases but I’ve never met anyone outside the US that even remotely likes Trump. I think the world really sees your presidency as a total joke. But I mean Bush Jr… twice.

    scaredoftrumpwinning ,

    I swear I remember my social studies teacher saying one reason for the electoral college is to prevent someone like Trump. The founding fathers didn’t want to trust the popular vote in case the masses got duped. With the polarization of the parties there’s little chance of voting for the other person happening. There are some state laws that force them to vote for their candidate but I’m not sure how many states have the faithless electors clause.

    Of course we got Trump because of the electoral college he lost the popular vote.

    ultratiem ,
    @ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

    Yeah I have no doubt that was the original idea. But now it just filters out all but 2 candidates that are paid for by big business and other outside investors. All of them foaming at the mouth to get whatever law makes them another billion eradicated or passed.

    MintyFresh ,

    I’ve always said Trump’s not the hero we need but the villain we deserve. We did this to ourselves, with citizens united, 24 hr “news”, straight up stupidity, and a just really strange sort of egotrip. Conversely my boy Bernie is the hero we needed, for the same reasons.

    As to that egotrip. I don’t think losing the Soviet Union was good for us. We need someone to lean into. Those goat spooning terrorist assholes just didn’t cut it adversary wise. China is too foreign to make a truly good enemy. Now we’re just vs. ourselves with predictable outcomes. If only there were a better way.

    eldavi ,

    Conversely my boy Bernie WAS the hero we needed

    fixed it for you

    Veraxus ,

    Speaking as an American: Our system lets people take the office despite not winning the popular vote. That’s just straight-up systemic corruption.

    homesweethomeMrL , in Martin Myers tried and failed to steal a cigarette. Why has he spent 18 years in prison for it?

    He was given an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection (IPP). This meant that while he could be released after 19 months and 27 days, he could also be jailed for up to 99 years. IPP was first used as a sentence in England and Wales in 2005, having been introduced by Labour in 2003 to detain in prison people who posed a significant risk of causing harm to the public. It was a controversial sentence. Critics said that jailing people for what they could do, rather than what they had done, contradicted the basic principle of justice: that people are innocent until proven guilty.

    Yeah, no shit. Jesus Fucking Christ.

    ChocoboRocket ,

    I can almost understand the idea when applied to extremely dangerous individuals. There should absolutely be some kind of separate system for people who are too dangerous to be able to reintegrate into society.

    A one size fits all justice system is a terrible way to run a society

    andyburke ,
    @andyburke@fedia.io avatar

    That is called "life in prison without the chance for parole," at least in the US.

    Nomecks ,

    It’s called “Three strikes you’re out” in some states. Commit three crimes of any severity and go away for a long time.

    xmunk ,

    In most cases, though, you can get those individuals on actual charges. People aren’t usually violent completely out of the blue and a suspicion of future violence might come from prior acts of violence or securing materials for mass violence (like building explosive devices)…

    The rationale for detaining someone for public safety is almost always coming from prior acts that we have laws for. We should force law enforcement to actually use those laws since they’ll have a burden of proof to enact enforcement… the IPP loophole is awful because it leaves no legal recourse - there was no trial you can appeal or at least argue against.

    Dasus ,
    @Dasus@lemmy.world avatar

    Holy shit.

    So basically anyone who is deemed enough of a nuisance can be indefinitely locked up?

    MakePorkGreatAgain ,

    not for the last 12 years, no.

    otp ,

    Unless they already started it, apparently! Lol

    machinin , in UC Berkeley’s campus is in turmoil. It’s unlike anything in recent memory.

    The Israeli lobby, propaganda machine in heavy attack mode against these protests. They’re scared. The protestors are making a big difference.

    Stopping calling anti-genocide movements anti-semitism, unless you want to say that your religion requires genocide.

    krashmo ,

    What difference are the protestors making? That’s a genuine question as I’ve not paid much attention to the topic. From what I know the war continues pretty much as it has for months.

    machinin ,

    I’m more basing it on the huge, coordinated reaction against and mischaracterization of the protests. I’m assuming it is backed by AIPAC pressure. Even Biden felt like he had to respond. AIPAC has done everything possible to thwart BDE actions by university students. The current climate is the most promising I’ve seen in a long time.

    I don’t think the protests will stop the war immediately, but they are setting up a foundation for a strong political base. If the protestors and media outlets start using the word genocide, I think it will be a good sign the pressure is working. Biden can’t ignore this forever, he knows he’s politically vulnerable.

    girlfreddy , in California won't prosecute LAPD officer who shot teenage girl in store's dressing room
    @girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

    As always, ACAB.

    whoreticulture ,

    plus All Cops Are Incompetent

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