@mattlav1250@journa.host
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

mattlav1250

@mattlav1250@journa.host

Former UK politics staffer turned annoying tweeter and reply person. Defecting from THE OTHER PLACE in light of its impending decline.

Author of the Changster politics and policy newsletter in the UK.

Hoping to re-follow UK and US politics, media and pop culture accounts.

Specialist subjects include European and Middle Eastern history, climate and energy transition politics, urban policy and YIMBY activism.

Ask me about: Direct-Solar Green Hydrogen production. The Finnish Arctic.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mattlav1250, to photography
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

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ai6yr, to ai

Arstechnica: "Microsoft’s VASA-1 can deepfake a person with one photo and one audio track

YouTube videos of 6K celebrities helped train AI model to animate photos in real time."
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/microsofts-vasa-1-can-deepfake-a-person-with-one-photo-and-one-audio-track/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@ai6yr FUN FACT..

the audio dataset this was trained on, VoxCeleb2, was stolen and copied from the Youtubers' videos by researchers in 2018, without their consent or knowledge.

mattlav1250, to ai
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

artificial INTELLIGENCE...

This is from the paid PREMIUM version of GPT4 and DALL-E 3...

·E

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protecttruth, to random
@protecttruth@mastodon.online avatar

“The White House had expected Democratic unrest over Gaza to fade as Biden picked up his campaigning against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, the officials said…”

Dear centrist political consultants in the White House, like Anita Dunn:

You are not serious people.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@darwinwoodka @protecttruth I honestly never understand this argument.

If the Republican alternative is truly terrible/terrifying, doesn't that make it EVEN MORE IMPORTANT that Dems are well run and lead?

This idea of "WHY ARE WE ATTACKING DEMS WHEN WE SHOULD BE ATTACKING TRUMP?!!?!!!"

The answer is...because fighting to get the best possible version of your own team presented to the world, is one of the best ways of beating the other team.

They're the same objective, not competing ones.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@darwinwoodka @protecttruth I actually think the situation in America right now is even more heinous than previous cycles...

because its clear from state and local races recently that all the issue trends are on the Dems' side.

They're absolutely pasting the republicans on abortion and similar issues.

Theres no underlying reason for the national election to be remotely close and difficult..its purely just Biden personally.

Any other country, the party would just swap Leader candidate.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@darwinwoodka @protecttruth I mean, the media didnt make him hug Benjamin Netenyahu, or bypass congress to fast track munitions shipments to Israel.

If we're keeping it 100, they also didnt make him run for reelection at age 81, when most world leaders would be long into their retirement.

I agree that there's lots of media (and social media) organisations that are responsible for amplifying negative anti-incumbent stories and also of him personally around age etc.

But thats our era 🤷‍♂️

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@darwinwoodka @protecttruth If youre serious about beating Trump or whoever, you should be equally serious about picking the right person to handle the modern media environment, and ideally someone who doesnt gift either the press or the otherside opportunities for attack.

On Israel Gaza in particular, theres plenty of more median positions that most democratic politicians, including Obama, could and would have taken, that would have drawn less outrage.

Its Biden's dated instincts at fault.

mattlav1250, to photography
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

mattlav1250, to ai
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

#ai #bingai #bingchat #bing

protecttruth, to random
@protecttruth@mastodon.online avatar

What I think about the blown-out door:
Public evidence supports Boeing ex-CEO committed fraud to get the 737Max approved, hundreds of people died, and our soft, passive DOJ failed to charge him criminally.
Instead he got a $39M golden parachute.

Safety requires a resolute DOJ.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@protecttruth FUN FACT:

That's not a door, that's not where the emergency doors are on the plane.

Its just a whole section of the fuselage that blew right out on its own.

batkaren, to random
@batkaren@mastodon.online avatar

Have we considered that Die Hard might not only be a Christmas movie, but may actually go a step further to be classifiable as a Hallmark-style holiday romcom?

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@batkaren @GayDeceiver Definitely yes.

All the key elements are there...

Man goes to a different town to Win back the Love of His Life ™️ ✔️

Woman Who's Too Busy With Her Big City Job to Appreciate Her Muscly Man / the spirit of the holidays ™️ ✔️

Man Competes against Sleazy Big City Materialist Who Doesn't Really Appreciate Her ™️ ✔️

Famous Black Guest Star in a Supporting Role ™️ ✔️

Family Reunited and Realise they Do Like each other after all ™️ ✔️

What more proof do they need?

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@GayDeceiver @batkaren Just hit that retoot button AND IT SHALL BE SO.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@GayDeceiver @batkaren I already have a cunning strategy of retooting replies of mine to push them into the main timeline, and give them a life of their own.

peterdrake, to ai
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

Does anybody have a good chart of which corporations own which AI systems? Web search is surprisingly useless in turning up such an article.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@peterdrake This is a ( not completely up to date) sheet of all the models, their compute and training costs, owners etc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1beiholXkLpiYoeyDL64bOHLI-mXZ-_8ZnY1Ed6Sfjh0/edit?usp=drivesdk

ErikJonker, to ai
@ErikJonker@mastodon.social avatar

The dream of an AI personal educator for each child, besides the invaluable human teachers at school, becomes attainable if you see the capabilities of GPT4 and now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4pX1VAxaAI&t=59s

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@ErikJonker this may be true, but unfortunately the inference cost of the models at this scale is completely unsustainable for that sort of use, or anything equivalent.

It takes 128 GPUs per instance to run GPT-4.

The cost per conversation on GPT-3 was 38c.

GPT-4 is roughly 3 times as expensive to run: or $1.14 PER CONVERSATION.

At those rates, routine casual usage is just not viable...even assuming we could give every child 128 dedicated GPUs, which we definitely cannot.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@ErikJonker Yes, but AZURE, which runs GPT, is ALSO a huge scaling machine, at least as large as Google Cloud.

It's true Google's dedicated Tensor processors / VPUs are more efficient for this task than generic GPUs, which probably does give them a slight edge relative to GPT.

But that still doesnt change the fundamental maths of this price point: The FLOPS cost is the FLOPS cost, no matter how efficiently you allocate it around. At same point you just have to pay it.

mattlav1250,
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@ErikJonker Also, I strongly dispute your "its Google, so I'm sure they must have worked out the economics / know what they're doing" take.

The history of Google Stadia, Duplex, Duo, Allo and the whole rest of the GOOGLE GRAVEYARD would strongly suggest that that is not how their organisation does business, and is not a reasonable assumption to make.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@ErikJonker Yes EXACTLY...the TECHNOLOGY worked fine...just like Bard etc no doubt will. At no point have I indicated that I don't think they know how to build technology. They are highly capable technologists.

It's the ECONOMICS /marketplace that they never worked out, just like they doubtless have not worked out the economics of Bard before launching.

Google's organisational culture is to experiment and launch things on spec and see what happens, then retrench or discontinue when it doesnt.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@ErikJonker Your claim was we cannot question the economics of a product if Google is launching it, as they must have worked it out before doing so.

MY point is that every bit of evidence we have is that that's not how they work.

They believe in building a thing, then rolling it out casually, and seeing if it sells itself or finds a marketplace.

Sometimes it does, like with Gmail or Google Maps or Adsense.

Sometimes it doesn't..as with Stadia, Allo, Duplex.

and I strongly suspect...BARD.

mattlav1250, to Hydrogen
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

ACWA Power Inks $746 Million Agreements For Green Hydrogen And Desalination Ventures - SolarQuarter
https://solarquarter.com/2023/10/30/acwa-power-inks-746-million-agreements-for-green-hydrogen-and-desalination-ventures/

mattlav1250, to Hydrogen
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar


EverWind Completes Pre-Certification with CertifHy™ for Canada's First Green Hydrogen and Ammonia Production
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/everwind-completes-pre-certification-with-certifhy-for-canadas-first-green-hydrogen-and-ammonia-production-301970876.html

ppatel, to ai
@ppatel@mstdn.social avatar

An engine scans a book. Is that copyright infringement or fair use?

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/an-ai-engine-scans-a-book-is-that-copyright-infringement-or-fair-use.php

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@ppatel well as the 9th circuit has previously made clear...the important word in this sentence is USE.

What does it USE the scanned text after?

Something that competes with and undermines the author's own works and source of income?
NOT FAIR USE

Used for purposes of criticism, review, summation, research etc...
FAIR USE

hankg, to history

I never bothered to learn the origins of the Renaissance Faire/Festival phenomenon in the US. I had assumed it had analogs to some sort of festivals in Europe. Nope it's a 100% American creation. It always felt more Medieval than Renaissance era too, which it always was apparently. It was just the people sponsoring the first one in 1963 thought Medieval had negative connotation to so many people so they opted for the more enlightened era name Renaissance. That and a whole lots of tidbits in this neat video. #history #RenaissanceFaire #RenaissanceFestival #LivingHistory youtu.be/gvHCNJwbsfs?si=nLjHr0…

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@hankg @goatsarah The UK has tonnes of historical reenactment societies and events, but theyre all rooted in actual historic periods..

14th century longbow archery, 15th century knight combat, the English Civil War, Celtic Warriors, Romans, Vikings etc.

Visit any historic castle or locale and they probably have some regular show or participation event.

Most rural villages, towns, schools and Churches also have annual or seasonal 'Fetes' which are actual traditional and authentic equivalents.

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@hankg @goatsarah Village shows and fetes in rural England will also have two types of renaissance fair-like, historic dressed up dancing performances:

Morris Dancing for adult men,

and Maypole Dancing for young children...

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MissingThePt, to random
@MissingThePt@mastodon.social avatar

The British Museum is asking the public and experts to help recover artifacts stolen and donated to the British Museum.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66921621

mattlav1250,
@mattlav1250@journa.host avatar

@MissingThePt We need to help the British Museum get these stolen artifacts back, so they can not return them to their rightful owners.

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