Chris Ellis @intrbiz@bergamot.social

🎈🥳🎆 10 MILLION MASTODON ACCOUNTS! 🎆🥳🎈

10,001,119 to be exact!

What a milestone!

https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount/110051957865629817

I wish more people understood that "I want the computer to generate a natural language text that sounds like a plausible answer to a question about x" and "I want the computer to answer a question about x" are two very different problems.

Jeremy Hunt "13 years ago, we inherited an economy which had crashed"

13 years ago the Tories inherited a AAA+ national credit rating. In the last 13 years, it’s been downgraded 7 times and is now AA.

National debt was £1.03 trillion in 2010, it’s £2.49 trillion today.

The UK was the 5th largest economy in the world. Now it is 7th and falling.

The living standard was on par with France, Italy or Germany. Now it is on par with Slovakia.

If anybody has “crashed” the economy it’s the Tories.

The UK's Online Safety Bill is poised to undermine encryption and create a regime of mass surveillance. Our president
@Mer__edith calls on the UK to reconsider this misguided Bill, and affirms that Signal will *never* undermine our privacy commitments:

https://signal.org/blog/uk-online-safety-bill/

Poll for the #postgres folks out there... how often do you tend to upgrade major versions (roughly)? Replies with extra context super welcome 🙏

Google likes to claim it loves the web. Google fucking broke the web.

Cookie notices on every fucking website? They need those because they use Google Analytics or Google Ads.

Recipe sites that go on for fucking days? That’s because Google penalises websites when you leave too quickly, and they can’t show as many ads.

Obviously-bullshit machine-generated “content” designed to entice you to click ads? That’s because Google Search is a monopoly.

I’m so tired of Google.

Hi, I work with generative machines. Everything from Markov chain generators to GPT-3. I’ve trained and tuned many models with GPT2 and 3, all with the intent of simulating human interaction.

I know a fair bit about generative machines, both how they work, and how to tune and interact with them to get particular results.

I need you to hear this: they do not know or understand anything. They are complex probability tables.

1/

There are things I should have done today.
There are things I _did_ do today.
There are also things I did not.
#NormalForMe

"Everything Everywhere All at Once" would make a good title for a blog post about prioritization at tech companies.

https://nexteam.co.uk/post/product/you-have-a-wealth-of-user-research-data-within-your-internal-team
"Unlock the wealth of User Research data within your own team! By building strong relationships with Sales, Marketing, and Support, you'll gain valuable insights into customer problems, emotions, and motivations at different stages of the product life cycle. Don't overlook the power of internal teams! #UserResearch #ProductLifeCycle #Collaboration #ProductManagement"

Did someone say "AIOps"?

A great #pun opportunity was missed by selecting the #Scottish #Highlands for a #space #launch site instead of #Speyside

This letter is going viral -- because it absolutely rips apart BBC Question Time's right-wing bias with clear data.

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/an-open-letter-to-the-bbc/

Dear developers. Please don’t forget to compliment things you like about someone’s code when reviewing their PR.

"Announcing a return to work for three days a week minimum so you can still continue to video call with your coworkers and now experience a fucked up hybrid work thing where nobody's needs are met" is some serious "hey don't consider working here" flags. Love that. 🙄

"Unleash your team's full potential as a #ProductManager - go from being just a team member to a coach! Set clear strategies, foster individual growth & team culture, and be the front line protector 💪 #PMlife #Leadership #TeamManagement"
https://nexteam.co.uk/post/product/product-managers-are-coaches

Meta. OpenAI. Google.

Your AI chatbot is not *hallucinating*.

It's bullshitting.

It's bullshitting, because that's what you designed it to do. You designed it to generate seemingly authoritative text "with a blatant disregard for truth and logical coherence," i.e., to bullshit.