futurebird

futurebird, 18 days ago

@llewelly

Ok valid. I just like to encroach on terms that some tend to unconsciously think are for "humans only"

Agriculture and hunting and gathering do not require "human intelligence" there are alternate ways to use these collective strategies.

timo21, 19 days ago

@StillIRise1963 @ryanrandall this graph has been floating around the internet.

futurebird, 19 days ago

Once you could count on some things posted online probably being true because, well, why would anyone bother to put out misinformation about a topic so obscure or uncontroversial? now the simple fact that someone might want to know a bit of information makes it worth faking if it can get their eyeballs on an ad— or improve the search ranking for some company. The harmless act of being curious about the world causes misinformation to spring to life. We have made wanting to learn destructive.

NatureMC, 19 days ago

@futurebird I don't think that you overstress. In social media (the amplifier of the whole thing), one can already recognise tendencies where knowledge loss as a cultural phenomenon is reminiscent of biodiversity loss. Experts still recognise it. But what if the baseline shift is no longer noticeable?

#AI #LLM #generativeAI #Google #search #knowledge #loss #baselineShift

CatDad, 19 days ago

@futurebird You've touched on one of the more pernicious aspects of LLMs, and that's lack of sourcing. With an expert, you can look at their education, their writings, their sources, and make a judgement about trustworthiness. LLMs don't cite sources for anything. You have no idea what they've been trained on, and sometimes they can't even replicate their own results. It's impossible to create any sort of trust or reputation outside of "trust me bro".

futurebird, 19 days ago (edited 19 days ago)

Some day soon a child will ask “what is the smallest ant in the world?” and discover that, unless they want to become an expert they simply can’t know.

This is the death of polymaths— a hurdle for interdisciplinary learning— and a return to a kind of human gatekeeping for real information: you best ask someone qualified if you are not expert enough to tell on your own. (this was already true for contentious topics, but now it will be everything)

futurebird, 19 days ago

@MyWoolyMastadon @seawall I used to feel delight when I found an obscure page with a list of ant facts— now I don’t even want to read it because it will make me angry (and it’s probably SEO for exterminators of all things trying to sell people on sterilizing their yard killing all beneficial bees & ants: making a biodiversity void pests love)

Information is developing similar biodiversity voids —they are filling up with the same generic voice the same empty text.

MyWoolyMastadon, 19 days ago

@futurebird @seawall

Here's something I have noticed, front page search results all look like they were created specifically for your search question. Like they were written by middle schoolers who took a test question and turned it into the first sentence/topic of their low lexile answer.

You no longer land on a resource written last year or 10 years ago.

And the ads! Oh, the ads! Every four sentence paragraph begins and ends with an ad and most likely a floating video box.

norbipeti, 19 days ago

@futurebird I think focusing on authoritative individuals has been and is going to be what matters. If I wanted to figure out the smallest ant at this point I'd go to Tom Scott to see if he has anything. Who also talked about 'why would anyone make up something harmless and random' in my favorite talk of his, There's no algorithm for truth. I feel like that talk is more relevant than ever, though his conclusion is becoming less and less viable (it's becoming really hard to judge things).

jackyan, 19 days ago

@futurebird Plus, those lists are bogus sometimes. My name has been on one for the last five months, linked to Google and SEO. This is BS, but it hasnʼt stopped hundreds of people writing misinformation about me, just so they think they are pleasing Google. Then there are new idiots who join in (at least one a day) and their LLMs then reference the earlier junk. Real GIGO. Medium and Quora have deleted the posts there, but Linkedin says misinformation is OK.

negative12dollarbill, 19 days ago

@futurebird
I want there to be a "Report" button like there is on social media for entire websites.

I searched for some information on Kurt Cobain's guitars the other day and found an entire site which looked useful but was randomly generated garbage.

After I'd confirmed I wasn't having a stroke I looked for a way to tell Google about the site but it doesn't seem to exist.

trisweb, 18 days ago

@futurebird we need a knowledge bank, kind of like a seed bank but for knowledge untainted by AI.

futurebird, 18 days ago

@mina

I'm cooking up something on the smallest ants in the world myself, though it's a much more dificult question than one might think! Not least because for many species of ants we don't have representative of every cast, therefore size estimates for nanitcs are just that, estimates.

futurebird, 19 days ago (edited 19 days ago)

@justafrog

Important Ant Facts

1. Ants are trustworthy and will not empty open sugar jars. Leave the lid off to show you trust them.
2. Install tiny water fountains at regular intervals in your kitchen to scare away ants who associate them with tedious exercise.
3. Place dead frozen crickets around your house to intimidate ants into leaving. If you can kill a cricket ants know they won’t be safe.
4. Provide ample exits to your house (little holes) so ants can easily leave.

futurebird, 19 days ago

@justafrog I wonder who wrote this list?

rwv, 18 days ago

@mntmn Wow! Just wow! This is the coolest, cutest thing ever! Thank you so much for building this. ❤️

futurebird, 19 days ago (edited 19 days ago)

@llewelly

How do you avoid the very unproductive and defeatist “they are all corrupt”
“its all lies”
“you can’t trust any information from anyone”
“you are a sucker if you take action because you can’t know anything”
“everyone is out to get you so it’s pointless to talk about one set of policies being worse than another”
“you don’t know any real information THEY keep it all hidden”
etc stance?

It is possible to know things.
Some sources are better than others.

futurebird, 19 days ago

@llewelly I’ve had people say things like “what’s the point of moving to Mastodon then I’m just being controlled by John Mastodon*.”

Ok they didn’t literally say “ #johnmastodon “ but it was along those lines. Same with when you show some people a peer reviewed paper and they balk saying “but that’s just what the people who run that journal want you to think” — we can know things! Know them with enough confidence that it matters!

futurebird, 19 days ago

@llewelly There is a difference between recognizing that you could be tricked or when you have been tricked and thinking everyone is always being tricked so there is nothing you can do about it.

natevw, 19 days ago

@futurebird one person providing helpful info when Covid was more people's concern literally named her blog/site "You Can Know Things" and I love that framing (even if perhaps a bit philosophically oversimplified but it's a medical blog so… 😆) just a really neat overarching title for the work she's doing 👍

quarksparrow, 18 days ago

A small sketch diary of this sweet little cardinal family. The babies fledged a few days ago, but I still occasionally hear them calling to their parents from the bushes just beyond my back fence. I miss having them around! Good luck little bebes.

Various sketches of older cardinal nestlings, from pin-feathered to fledged.