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  Alvin Toffler’s 1970 bestseller Future Shock argued that almost all the social problems of the sixties could be traced back to the increasing pace of technological change. The endless outpouring of scientific breakthroughs transformed the grounds of daily existence, and left Americans without any clear idea of what normal life was. Humans were not psychologically prepared for the pace of change, Toffler wrote. He coined a term for the phenomenon: accelerative thrust. https://thebaffler.com/sa...

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  @billkav Cheers! Similar situation here, I'll take the time to read through it slowly in total again. A thorough analysis worthwhile to read, authored by David Graeber. Quite a few déjà-vu moments contained - e.g. on the pace of technological advances and humans not being mentally prepared for the *pace* of change. Putting current assumptions about the future into a sociological and historical perspective.

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  "Eliza ist als Programm incredibly simple, wirklich, hat aber im Herzen einen Punkt getroffen, das macht es bisschen kompliziert, nicht der einfache Code. Eliza wurde missverstanden, als intelligentes System, das aber ist ein Fehler, der genau in unsere Zeit passt", sagte Joe Weizenbaum 2003. Das Blumenmädchen Eliza Doolittle aus Shaws "Pygmalion" ist die Namensgeberin. Sie wird von einem Linguisten in gehobener Sprache trainiert und gilt dann als Oberschicht...

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  Today yields a pot of gold (or even two)

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  @grimethorpeband@mastodonapp.uk Dear me, you're up and alive on Mastodon?! Goosebumps. My Scottish friend's granddad was a miner and from Grimethorpe, so I'd been told. Of course I know "Brassed Off" - honestly one of the best movies of all times. Highly relevant, and moving. Cheers from Germany! So glad you are here!

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  Dave Grohl rocks! 🥁 🎂 + 54 candles (a little late, I know I know) Famous drum battle Grohl vs. Animal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZz9TSjZCM

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  Sigmoiders, don't miss out: Voting for our #mascot runs until Jan 21. See announcements + go to your personalised google forms link :robotlove:

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  Wie geht es euch so mit #Mastodon? 😶 / 😊 Hostet ihr eine eigene Instanz – habt es vor oder mal probiert? Für @heiseonline habe ich mit einem Softwarearchitekten über die Plattformarchitektur gesprochen. Golo Roden hatte versucht, eine besonders sichere Instanz aufzumachen. Nun hat er Bedenken aus technischer Sicht – aber auch spannende Ideen zu #OpenSource: Nicht immer muss und kann es gratis sein, meint er. Was meint ihr ❓ Unser Interview steht hier: https://www.heise.de/meinung/Interview-...

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  #Africa wants its own #AI strategy: to avoid becoming a dumping ground for a technology dominated by the Global North and its values, local researchers are pushing. In the race to catch up, they are betting on #grassroots AI. #Technology #Sovereignty @heiseonline –Article in German. A Summary🧵 sits here: https://twitter.com/_SilkeHahn/status/1622265110239535105 https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Missing-Link-Grassroot-KI-Afrikas-Aufholjagd-bei-Kuenstlicher-Intelligenz-7483386.html

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  @matthewmaybe Hey Matthew, I have summarized the article in 25 tweets (in German) but I mean to translate them, at least for Mastodon. Haven't figured out yet how to create a "thread" over here... Any idea? Hang on, I'll get this done after work :) @heiseonline

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  @matthewmaybe here we go: English summary in 25 tweets https://twitter.com/_SilkeHahn/status/1622653822022688774

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  New AI Chatbots? Google's "Bard" is announced. Quora released "Poe" today. Anthropic made "Claude". "Sparrow" by #DeepMind is winging its way, I'm sure Meta will join the choir. Some alternatives in Europe: "Lumi" by Jonas Andrulis' #AlephAlpha (multimodal: any combination of text + images as input), YouChat by Richard Socher - a German expat in the Valley. Andrulis & team...

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  @davidaugust @slightlyflightyone@sergal.org I am aware of this problem and was eager to see what people think about this approach and of the paper "Extracting Training Data from Diff. Models". Currently working with an open source lawyer who describes the copyright issues of AI-generated images in an article. The abstract ways in which images from the training database are represented within the models' latent space does not allow a copyright attribution at present, af...

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  @benchmark @b2c @heiseonline worauf bezieht sich denn der Toot? Kontext wird mir nicht dargestellt... Bin keine Netzwerk-Expertin.

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  Been to Berlin for a panel on the leaked energy efficiency law (draft), spoke to the Hessian Digital Minister Sinemus, experts and Data Center providers. It's strange to see a drafted law that far from the physical reality; it almost sounds satirical: Data centers are supposed to put 30% of their warmth to sustainable use until 2025, and 40% until 2027 - but no infrastructure nor plan how to do this. Raises questions. Here's my report from Berlin (in German) https://www.hei...