How Google Translate Uses Math to Understand 134 Languages | WSJ Tech Behind
“Google Translate uses sophisticated neural networks to translate 134 languages in real time. And using your phone’s camera, it can translate your surroundings without typing.”
@bibliolater@linguistics@science
Don't forget to use privacy links / less advert-filled links! See below as same video but tracking ⚠️ and bad code ⚠️ filtered out!... ☑️
People perceive parasocial relationships to be effective at fulfilling emotional needs
“Although strong two-sided relationships were consistently seen as the closest, most responsive, and most effective relationship type for fulfilling emotional needs, we found that people consider a strong PSR—someone they have never met (e.g., YouTube creator, a celebrity) and who may not even exist (e.g., fictional character)—as closer, and more effective at fulfilling their emotional needs than an acquaintance they interact with dyadically (i.e., their weak two-sided relationship).”
Lotun, S., Lamarche, V.M., Matran-Fernandez, A. et al. People perceive parasocial relationships to be effective at fulfilling emotional needs. Sci Rep 14, 8185 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-58069-9
YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it....
Today in a Privacy community a post about YouTube. No word about privacy but all about which software or settings are needed to watch videos and the money needed to host videos. It made me wonder whether some of you can lead a meaningful life without YouTube. Or will a cold turkey bring the worst out of you ?
"On this day in 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died. Here is a British Movietone report with highlights of his life"
I understand this is giving my new book away for free, but honestly, have at it! If any podcasters or bloggers or #YouTube people wanna review Pass the Salt, or anybody just wants to grab it for free, here you go! This folder will be deleted in 2 months, so have fun with it! If you like it, support my writing financially.
Publisher: Compassiviste Publishing.
Online dating is never easy. You’re meeting a complete stranger, and you’re opening yourself up in a way that some of your best friends don’t even get to see. But when Robert Kingett stepped out onto the dating scene, he faced a whole host of additional challenges as a gay man living with blindness, cerebral palsy, and a speech impediment. Pass the Salt details Robert’s time on the dating scene in 2010s Chicago. Get ready to meet the brightest and best from the online dating world, including The Fare Fan, The Smooth Catfish, and the dashing Richard, who’s better company than Robert’s humming fridge. It’s a hilarious and often moving account of his adventures, guaranteed to make you laugh, make you think, and above all, inspire you.
@actuallyautistic I feel like we really need to develop healthy routines.
I've been working on getting off #youtube for a long time now. My viewing habits have changed significantly. Partly thanks to #peertube, which works well but is still in its infancy.
> This delightful coming-of-age adventure set in a futuristic #Lagos is unashamedly optimistic, wonderfully voice acted and full of beautiful landscapes – even if it is hard to follow
This is a story I did not think I would be continuously updating.
Let's start with a question: How many of you have heard teen boys, or heard teachers talk about, teen boys referring to themselves as "Sigma Males"?
I ask because one of my Baltimore City School teachers is seeing this all the time now in the classroom, and finding TikTok videos of other teachers around the country discussing it.
In brief, a Sigma Male is supposedly a "lone wolf" (loner) who is misunderstood by his community, yet has all the potential of an Alpha Male, and is just absolutely charming to the ladies if he tunes his technique. The problem here is that this all seems connected to the Incel movement and those young men are being trained that they are entitled to young women.
A follow-on problem is that I'm suspecting this is all part of a propaganda campaign to recruit young men to an Incel way of thought.
To the best of my knowledge, the term Sigma Male as a personality type never came out of an actual psychological assessment system. If it did, it has been twisted.
Reading from the bottom of the message below to the top:
Part 1: I stumble across a "personality test" for men on YouTube in which Sigma Males seem too good to be true. Then I discover the channel has gamed the YouTube algorithm by having 10% "personality test" videos, and 90% "how to bag a woman to use" videos.
Part 2: My wife sends me an ad for a romance novel series featuring Sigma Males -- showing this idea is moving mainstream.
Part 3: The high school kids start referring to themselves as Sigma Males.
Once again, we need to be re-doubling programming and messaging that focuses on the value of both community and of women as equals.
Do please see below.
-- Michael Reeder LCPC
TITLE: Return of the "Sigma Male"
A brief update to the story I posted last January (and below) on "Sigma Males", YouTube Algorithms, and the funneling of lonely young men into unhealthy modes of thought.
My wife found the attached photo gem on social media. Its of an entire romance book series entitled "The Sigma Menace: The Complete Series". "In this irresistible collection, wolf shifters break all the rules in the name of passion, love, and claiming their destined mates!"
Great... Do men read romance novels, or has this contamination spread to women too now?
Not sure if the graphic will post here, or at the bottom of the entire message.
The original message is definitely on-topic for the list. This photo... kinda extra.
"Sigma Male" is a bogus pop psychology concept linked with incels and -- perhaps more positively -- helping lonely young men feel better about themselves. But... they are irresistible loners and entitled to women... Not happy to see it going kind of mainstream.
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Originally Published: 01/17/2023
TITLE: YouTube Pseudo-Psychology, Algorithm Traps, and How I Got Set-Up
to Look Like I Cheat
My wife and I share a YouTube Premium subscription. A few weeks ago I was scrolling through YouTube recommendations when I came across a video on different male personality types.
"Sure", I thought, "I'm a therapist -- why not check it out". So I watched the video as it invited me to try and decide which type of male I was as they described them. I noticed they made the "Sigma Male" sound the most attractive -- which was a bit odd -- but I thought little more about it.
A few weeks later (tonight), up popped a video on 10 characteristics of a "Sigma Male". I was curious, so I watched it. They spent the whole video making "Sigma Males" seem like super heroes. Suspicious now, I went to the channel these videos were coming from to look around.
I was displeased to see that 10% of the videos were on male personality characteristics, and *90% of the videos were dedicated to how Sigma Males Get Women.* Video after video of how to bag yourself a blonde or brunette. Yuck.
You can guess where this is going -- now our shared YouTube recommendations list is full of how-to videos on attracting hot women. The uncool thing is I have never watched any such video to deserve this. The really uncool thing is my wife will be spotting this tomorrow. Happily -- she is very understanding and not the jealous type.
Besides -- she can always look at my view history. I'll also be sending her this message. :)
Is there actually a valid psychological theory outside pop psychology including "Sigma Males"? When I Google it, I get lots of pop psychology websites, including something called the "Incel Wiki".
Now I do feel slightly ill.
-- Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
APPENDED NOTE:
I sent the original note above out a few days ago on a national psych listserv and it engendered some relevant psychological discussion on how AI and algorithms effect the mental health of our clients.
Happily my wife thought the note and situation above hilarious (I thought she might).
Part of what was so troubling to me here was the clear funneling process being executed on vulnerable young men on YouTube:
STEP 1: Grab guys just interested in learning about themselves. (Or psychotherapists interested in personality systems.)
STEP 2: Make "Sigma Males" sound like the most attractive type so they are identified with. (Lonely geeks are recast as desirable lone wolf types with all the skills of alpha males.)
STEP 3: Game the YouTube algorithm so the next recommendations are how "Sigma Males" get women. (I decided to bail at this point so I am not going to view what is being recommended. Judging by the fact that "Sigma
Male" connects in Google searches to Incel websites, I shutter to think...)
[It's possible that "Sigma Male" is a term from a legitimate personality system, but if so, its been at least partially co-opted by pop psychology.]
A discussion commenter stated: /"The mental health challenge is to help people become aware of how AI is taking over their lives so that they can manage the AI rather than have the AI manage them."/
My new resolve to periodically create new YouTube profiles to get out of old tracking algorithms is one example of an adaptation.
*People need other ways to escape tracking to get out of boxes* -- like the old BBS (bulletin board systems) that let you read (or not read) every community comment from every poster without algorithms tailoring your newsfeed.
*People need tools to recognize when they are being herded into specific ways of thinking.* Like many of our political silos. Like my original example above of an interest in male psychology potentially leading to Incel-like "education" on how to be a "Sigma Male" who gets all the women.
*Businesses need some government regulation in what tracking they can do -- in all environments, but especially the free ones.* People may need to return to PAYING for their information sources so they themselves are not the product.
Ironically, it was GOOGLE, whose "I'm feeling lucky" button below the search engine field used to take users to a random website somewhere on the Internet.
*We are now in need of actively maintaining personal ways to randomly escape our information bubbles so as to better recognize them.*****
-- Michael
*Michael Reeder, LCPC
#psychology #socialwork #psychotherapy #research #incel #AI
#artificialintelligence #youtube #mentalhealth @[email protected]
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
#Algorithms #personalitytests @[email protected] #Sigma #SigmaMales #lonely #mentalhealth
My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.
Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.
There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.
So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?
I have to say, what feels good on #Mastodon is replying to & engaging with OTHER people's posts.
As a semi-recovering "content #creator" (who anymore feels I’m screaming into a void when I spend months researching/#writing/filming/producing work only to birth it into the black hole of #Google/#YouTube/#Facebook/#Instagram), engaging directly w/other humans feeds my algorithmically-drained soul
My reply-to-post ratio is quite skewed to replies...& I like it that way
YouTube videos are skipping to the end for users with adblockers (9to5google.com)
I Don’t Want To Spend My One Wild And Precious Life Dealing With Google’s AI Search - Aftermath (aftermath.site)
YouTube Tests Showing Ads When You Pause a Video, Calls it ''Pause Ads'' (www.androidauthority.com)
YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it....
Can you live without YouTube ?
Today in a Privacy community a post about YouTube. No word about privacy but all about which software or settings are needed to watch videos and the money needed to host videos. It made me wonder whether some of you can lead a meaningful life without YouTube. Or will a cold turkey bring the worst out of you ?