I love that a multi-billion-dollar corporation like RedHat/IBM can ship an operating system with a broken screen reader in 2024 (it’s not just them, it’s true for basically every major Linux distribution today) and, when you point it out, the response is “it’s no one’s fault… it’s all free labour… it’s FOSS, man”. And then: oh, and this charity is paying for one person to work on accessibility support to be implemented now… Anyone else see how fucked up that is?
Why should it take @sovtechfund to fund accessibility work on the Linux distribution of a multi-billion-dollar corporation like IBM? Why the fuck isn’t IBM paying for it?
#AI#GenerativeAI#LLMs#DataCenters#BigTech#Energy#WaterScarcity#FossilFuels#ClimateChange: "Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.
Google’s global datacentre and Meta’s ambitious plans for a new AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) further underscore the industry’s energy-intensive nature, raising concerns that these facilities could significantly increase energy consumption. Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world. Before making big announcements, tech companies should be transparent about the resource use required for their expansion plans."
Ob Banking, Ticketbuchung... die Entwicklung hin zu „App only“-Geschäftskonzepten zwingt uns in die Abhängigkeit der globalen Digitalkonzerne. Braucht es ein Recht auf analoge Zugänge?
#AI#GenerativeAI#AITraining#BigTech#Journalism#Media#News: "Large publishers are forging ahead with voluntary agreements in the absence of legal regulatory clarity. But this leaves out smaller and local publishers and could undermine efforts to develop business model alternatives as opposed to one-off licensing opportunities.
Ad hoc approaches, however, risk worsening the compounding crises caused by the decline of local news and the scourge of disinformation. We are already seeing the proliferation of election related disinformation in the U.S. and around the world, from AI robocalls impersonating President Joe Biden to deepfakes of Moldovan candidates making false claims about alignment with Russia.
Renegotiating the relationship between tech platforms and the news industry must be a fundamental part of the efforts to support journalism and help news organizations adapt to the generative AI era."
There’s a difference between being useful and being a usefool.
A usefool is someone who launders their legitimacy to benefit corporate interests for short-term gain. They do so even if, ultimately, it’s against their own interests and those of others in the longer term. (1/3)
I believe #Microsoft knew that #recall would generate this kind of backlash. They just don't care, they're testing limits of what they can get away with ... After all #google and #facebook got away (mostly) with what they're doing. It's the slow boiling frog method ... and people are gullible enough to buy whatever BS big tech marketing is selling ...
#AI#GenerativeAI#OpenAI#BigTech#SiliconValley: "Company documents obtained by Vox with signatures from Altman and Kwon complicate their claim that the clawback provisions were something they hadn’t known about. A separation letter on the termination documents, which you can read embedded below, says in plain language, “If you have any vested Units ... you are required to sign a release of claims agreement within 60 days in order to retain such Units.” It is signed by Kwon, along with OpenAI VP of people Diane Yoon (who departed OpenAI recently). The secret ultra-restrictive NDA, signed for only the “consideration” of already vested equity, is signed by COO Brad Lightcap.
Meanwhile, according to documents provided to Vox by ex-employees, the incorporation documents for the holding company that handles equity in OpenAI contains multiple passages with language that gives the company near-arbitrary authority to claw back equity from former employees or — just as importantly — block them from selling it.
Those incorporation documents were signed on April 10, 2023, by Sam Altman in his capacity as CEO of OpenAI."
If you only read one article this year, it has to be THIS by @Mer__edith, the president of #signal :
"AI is a marketing term, not a technical term of art. [...]
This is also why it’s imperative that we recognize mass surveillance – and ultimately the surveillance business model – as the root of the large-scale tech we’re currently calling “AI”."
Only accusing the "big companies" for doing all sort of "unethical" things, is like only accusing mass murderers for the killings that they do. Every crime is a crime. Big or small. Small companies do similar shady practices and abuse people or destroy the environment.
But best is to look at the system that creates these entities instead of accusing companies or people.
As long as the underlying practice on this planet is to TRADE or else you are fucked, then this is what we are going to do and prioritize. Thus the evolution of companies and billionaires, waste, pollution, you name it.