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Yesterday, I was invited to join a community on Hylo. I did so but I don’t know if I’ll stay.
Given the instigator, it’s not surprising that there seems a strong American emphasis to it. I’m used to that being a pervasive quality of digital media and one of the many reasons I love Mastodon is that I don’t feel that here.
But what also comes with that American emphasis is a turning up of the volume setting of people looking to AI to address the community’s concerns. And frankly…
@urlyman Depicting some abstract idea of the #Whitesettlers who built #USA (and arguably #Australia, and #Israel, #UK... )
@SusiArnott yes. I strongly dislike it. It’s at best incredibly tone deaf
…that’s another alarm bell.
On the one hand, there is not going to be a community that mirrors my sensibilities (and that’s a good thing) but the AI vibe is insidious, and it seems to me that that may be part of Hylo itself.
But there’s more to it than that. The image that Hylo have used at https://www.hylo.com/about to ‘inspire’ makes me deeply uneasy:
- its stifling lack of cultural diversity
- its creepy generative AI vibe
- its overt Americanness
@urlyman It's 100% slop.
Look at "sonny boy" there, with his hand slurping right into his chin.
And "daddy-dead-eye", and right next to his face, in the background, a guy whose finger appears to have been cracked straight back and never set.
@urlyman
I always find this type of AI generated picture creepy. What gets me most (and marketing photographs with real people have that as well) is that you have any number of people pretending to be doing something - teamwork, some leisure activity, travel, whatever, and everyone in the picture is smiling ear to ear. Have you ever seen something like this in real life? Pictures of this kind (whether AI generated or actual photographs) have a certain very creepy uncanny valley vibe.
…And this morning I find myself agreeing with @shojiwax on another intersection of AI with ‘well-being’.
It’s not surprising, and there will be lots more to come, but it is really dispiriting
…There’s another aspect to the Hylo/Discord/[insert name of alternative similar platform] proposition that bothers me but I’ll probably struggle to articulate it well.
In real life, communities tend to be porous. They’re open to the world by default. I understand the impulse to close off and find a safe space when a group of people suffer overt oppression. But when the intention of a community is to discuss answers to *collective problems* that makes no sense
…Anyway, sat here in the UK, all of this has the feel of a tsunami of Americana AI. It’s kind of inevitable, but…
My hope is that a growing number of Americans reflect on just how much of the high energy fucked-up-ness of where we are is a direct product of their culture. And think a bit more carefully before slathering that aesthetic over the other 96% of the world’s population
@urlyman Australian schools have decided to go with AI because ... wait for it ... it's "inevitable" ... and .. they want to make sure our students "know how to use it".
Now, Australian governments are pretty dense when it comes to IT, but this made me laugh out loud. Just what do they think kids need to learn about a technology that leaps out from every corner and grabs you by the throat? It's like saying kids need to learn how to "use" temu ads. The greater need is for them to learn how not to be swallowed whole by AI.
@ReggieHere indeed. LLMs very clearly have reinforcement built in as an essential behaviour
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