Eh, I would have agreed 20 years ago, but of late he seems to be at least trying to right the books before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

Besides, we have new oligarchs to shit on and blame for things and they are infinitely more culpable and shitty than he ever was really.

That is interesting and a bit anarcho, and I will not say I disagree, but I am of two minds given my distinct role on both sides of the line. We have made some of our code public, but there are privacy and security concerns given we are handling people’s personal data and private artwork, so exposing the whole codebase exposes potential security flaws, so keeping parts closed source makes sense. Balancing people’s privacy has to be a consideration as well when dealing with offering services.

Just wanting to make sure I understand your position, only open source code can be ethical?

I get what you are sayin, but it was not an advertisement since I am acting as a citizen, not an employee. I wanted to actually share that I was proud of my bosses for doing things the way they should. If we don’t share the ones that behave right, they will all vanish because it is not as profitable to behave right as it is to abuse customers and employees. I would encourage anyone who works somewhere that acts with honor and respect to share it and offer proof of why it is true. Laude the laudable, ya know? We do a good job of calling out the pieces of shit, but not for offering alternatives.

Edit: why is it wrong to laude a company I work for because they are ethical and doing business how it should be done? If we do not share the good companies as alternatives how will we ensure that they stick around?

I am actually very proud that the company I work for literally does not tick a single box.

www.GridMarkets.com

We are a cloud infrastructure company that caters to animation and visual effects artists. We sponsor people’s passion projects. Everything is a prepay model that does not have any minimums and actually let’s you zero your account. No advertising, no data harvesting (I can say that with confidence as I would be the person doing it if it were happening and I don’t). Genuine altruism and genuine customer centric development. And the culture is not toxic in the slightest. The owners always make sure we are all paid before taking a dime and never take more than they pay the rest of us. It is seriously such a good company.

They also do compute for computational chemistry, prosumer AI platforming (providing access to ComfyUI, A1111, etc, not actually building AIs or stealing anyone’s data), and we can handle just about anything else.

If anyone out there has need for compute power for anything and want to work with a company that actually gives a shit, reach out. Especially if it is in a vertical space we already provide services in.

Yeah, those aren’t athiests, they are assholes. Anyone who prosthelytizes is an asshole. Period.

Agnostic here and yeah, most atheists and agnostics I have ever met are about the same. We don’t care if YOU believe. We care that you care we don’t. Most of us will never utter a word against your religion and beliefs as long as you “do unto others” and all that jazz. This comic reaks of being drawn by a Christian about how they think Athiests behave and feel. This video is ancient now, but I get the same vibes off this comic.

Why did it make you angry? All gravitationally bound objects orbit around a common center. For the solar system that center wobbles around inside the sun depending on where Jupiter and Neptune are in their orbits. The rest of the mass of the solar system does contribute, but it is generally negligible for most conversations. This is actually one of the ways that exoplanet hunters have found literally thousands of planets in the last decade or so.

Because a browser is several orders of magnitudee more complex than a website.

This gives Randall-is-pissed vibes the same way https://youtu.be/e47lHyQZ2I4 gives Bill-is-fucking-pissed vibes. I love both of them.

I like to believe that Billy Ignore instructions is Bobby Tables’ kid.

You assume that the governments of which you speak are not assisting intentionally. These companies did not write the EULA legal frameworks that allow them virtual carte blanch to take and do whatever they want just because the population is trapped in the endless cycle of coercion that is our life.

Why do all of these companies decide they are so tired of existing?

When cops only legal responsibility is to enforce the law, and the laws are written to protect corporate interests, of course they will stand outside the school and arrest protesters. SCOTUS has ruled that way so many times that “to serve and protect” is literally gaslighting.

It really is unfortunate as it COULD be a really good feature if it were being implemented by someone who wasn’t just trying to crowdsource AI training data that will go into commercial products without compensation to anyone. It could be a great tool for professionals and experts to expand on what creators say, a way to call out falsehoods and Hypocrites, and a way to find your people in a world that is growing ever bleaker. But no, it is just being done to force more ads down our throats and harvest more money from us.

One of the most salient things I think I hace ever learned is that the US revolution against British rule was instigated by less than 1000 people of a population of over 2.5 million people, and it didn’t have the support of more than 45% of the population at any point in the war. (https://www.nps.gov/teachers/classrooms/loyalists-in-american-revolution.htm)

Most people did not want the inconvenience then and proportionally 0 of them had any say in it starting.

Not all heroes wear capes. Seriously, this man is now enshrined in my mental halls of great men along with John Bannister Goodenough, whom I just discovered died last year. I’m going to go be heartbroken now.

Just train a couple LoRAs and you can add in the vectors needed for doing whatever you want. “Circumventing” “safeguards” in this case means using a feature built into the system already. I have been making AI porn from the start. The day in installed their local framework for using it and got a Rick Astly image instead of anime tits I went and found their censorship function and neutered it. It is just python code, super easy to do.

My hot take, in the digital age, all direct marketing should be opt-in with the platform. Opt-in for industries with the ability to ban specific advertisers.