I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and policy: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/

  • 66 Posts
  • 198 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 24th, 2025
  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPtoTechnology@lemmy.world•2126: The year data will be controlled by citizens, not tech companiesEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Exactly, so why not demand ownership of our data?

    When you look at data sovereignty in indigenous communities people are already establishing ways to do this.

    What’s even more concerning than social networks, jobs, daily commutes, shopping habits, sexual preferences, political views etc. is health data. Not only is that extremely private, corporations recognize the monetary value is incredibly high.

    https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/16/health-ai-electronic-health-records-hipaa-deidentified-data-market/

    Artificial intelligence models are ever-hungry black boxes that need boatloads of bits and bytes from a wide stream of real-world data in order to produce insights about patients and their care. To satisfy this need, a trove of companies have popped up to buy patient data from hospitals and sell it to those wanting to train AI or do research.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667321525001775

    In today’s digital era, data has evolved into an invaluable asset often described as the new oil making its governance especially consequential for Indigenous communities. Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) affirms the rights of Indigenous peoples to govern, control, access, and benefit from data that derive from their peoples, lands, and knowledge systems (Carroll et al., 2020). This principle has direct implications for population health because data governance influences how priorities are defined, how prevention and care strategies are implemented, and how health outcomes are assessed across communities (Rhodes et al., 2023). A long history of exclusion from decisions about data collection and use has produced exploitation, misrepresentation, and persistent mistrust in data-driven health initiatives (Fox, 2020; Mello and Wolf, 2010).

    There are some models of data sovereignty where people are being given direct control of their health data, and it cannot be legally used for anything without their permission. Even if it’s granted permission to be used once for a certain piece of research, it’s then locked away again afterwards.

    There’s also examples where people are paid directly/individually for allowing access to their data.

    Imagine the value to be leveraged by people if all data (civic, digital, health) was locked away from corporations. And not sold, temporarily leased to whoever individuals or communities choose to lease if to.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPtoTechnology@lemmy.world•2126: The year data will be controlled by citizens, not tech companiesEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    I’m head over heels in love with the idea of communities taking back control of their data and using it to leverage power.

    But I also think we should be thinking in terms of how do we achieve this before 2126 bc we need to establish and gain control before it can be used to train anymore shitty oligarchy controlled AI that keeps failing to perform in the real world.

    Even if this is just step one of a marathon, it seems like something most cities should be aiming to catch up with sooner rather than later:

    https://debeaumont.org/programs/made-for-health-justice/

    About MADE for Health Justice Modernized Anti-racist Data Ecosystems (MADE) for Health Justice partners with communities who are creating, using, and governing civic data on their own terms to advance health equity and more just decision making.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.workstoTechnology@lemmy.world•‘Slough is like an experiment’: Europe’s largest datacentre hub leaves town sweltering — Datacentres create a heat island effect, pushing up temperatures in the immediate vicinity by as much as 9CEnglish
    7·
    17 days ago

    The hallucinating, gaslighting, sycophantic chatbots that were hyped via propaganda campaigns that promoted them as the future and key to efficiency, are now destroying humanity and locking people in addictive cycles of delusion.

    “Ya better hop on board! Don’t wanna get left behind…”

    The hallucinating sycophantic chatbots are not only destroying the capacity for human relationships and interactions, they’re not even “efficient” and have destroyed most of the companies that have embraced them.

    The economy is absolute shit. “AI” companies aren’t even making any money but the chatbot addicts are still throwing endless piles of cash at them to burn while chasing the high that will never deliver (the cycle of desperate delusions common to any addiction), because the chatbots have them convinced (deluded) they’re always on the edge of the big breakthrough that will finally make it all worthwhile.

    And as the number of data centers increases, people are starting to take notice it sure does seem to be getting hot in this pot of boiling water… “Wonder what that’s all about? I’ll ask the company that owns the data center if it’s anything I should be concerned about?”

    “… Nope, turns out there’s a reassuring explanation for why this is all fine and nothing is as it seems… It just feels like this pot of water is getting hotter to you, but facts don’t care about your feelings. You can’t argue with facts…”

    “Just relax and come on in, the water’s fine!”

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPtoTechnology@lemmy.world•How will AI sycophancy change us? Early signs are not encouragingEnglish
    6·
    1 month ago

    In many of the cases in the essay, chatbots responded to users with mystical language to suggest that users have heightened spiritual importance. The bots also implied that users were speaking with a cosmic being who was using the chatbot as a medium.

    Idk, I feel like a true misanthrope would be able to read these 2 sentences and at the very least immediately swear off AI chat bots, if not move to a completely isolated cabin in the woods with no electricity or internet.

    It’s like the broligarchy birthed a bastard child that’s just a composite of humanity’s worst qualities. All the traits they projected on to the masses as evidence to justify their antidemocratic savior complex bullshit. Impulsive/poor decision making, superstition, paranoia, narcissism.

    They’re investors, not inventors, but they’re 100% convinced this bullshit is going to be man’s greatest and longest lasting contribution to existence, and that their names will go down in history as the technocratic leaders who changed the world… And their own delusions are probably being fueled by the same fucking chat bots, and sharing data between platforms in a never ending sycophantic circle jerk that’s spreading exponentially like the dumbest fucking virus to ever exist… I just… 🤦‍♀️

    Tldr: These people don’t deserve the title of misanthrope.

    Edit: I guess I should add the caveat that in the case destruction of humanity/civilization was always the actual goal of some 4-D misanthropic chess master behind the curtain, then bravo and hats off to them for being a real one, I guess?

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPtoTechnology@lemmy.world•How will AI sycophancy change us? Early signs are not encouragingEnglish
    17·
    1 month ago

    I feel like there needs to be a more accurate name for whatever the phenomenon of AI fueled sycophantic delusion is. Because clearly it’s something, and more and more people seem to be noticing it.

    It’s like the people who are closest to the person spiraling can see they’re watching a train headed towards a brick wall, and they can’t stop it. But the person experiencing the delusion is often still fairly high functioning, so other people who are a bit more removed from the situation tend to to be very dismissive of the comparison to psychosis.

    At least until the poor decision making of the delusional person expands to their world, and everything starts going tits up for them too. Then suddenly they’re like “Gorsh, he just seemed so confident and he was wearing a suit, so I assumed he had his shit together. But now that he’s draining MY bank account, I think something might be wrong with his brain.”

    Like what’s a better way to describe the high functioning level of AI fueled delusional? Where he hasn’t sold all of his assets and moved to the desert so he can fully devote himself to whatever breakthrough he believes he’s on the verge of discovering (yet), but somebody should really stop this guy before he does any more damage to himself or others?

    Soft Psychosis?

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.workstoTechnology@lemmy.world•“Sloppenheimer:” Amazon Employees Mock the Company’s AI on SlackEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    Sure he would, he probably just means they will no longer need two full time incomes. Greatness awaits America in a future when only one adult from a household has to work full time.

    Sure the other adult and some fraction of the (?/5+)* children that federal and state policies ensure they’re forced to give birth to, may need to take on some form of employment to keep food on the table or meet their state’s medicaid and/or food stamp work requirements.

    But when that inevitably happens, they always have the freedom of picking up a few shifts at one of Daddy Bezo’s local warehouses,** guaranteed to be located in an American hellscape near you, and sandwiched conveniently between your local data center and concentration camp detention center.

    If you’re from a really bougie area, you might just have a hospital across the street from your Amazon warehouse full of doctors trained at Wal-Mart’s new medicals schools (bc America thrives on competition 🙃), who will rely on AI for patient diagnosis instead of wasting time and money on all those unnecessary lab workups.

    Yep. With the system working as intended and the Oligarchy steering us towards greatness, how could America be anything other?

    (*Unknown/variable number will actually survive past early childhood in a country hell bent on bringing back so many preventable diseases. On the bright side, no more public education = no more schools = no more “germ factories.” Unless you’re counting the actual factories where American children will work instead of going to school.)

    (**As long as it leaves them just below 40 hrs a week and unable to qualify for health insurance through their employer.)