Judith Donath @[email protected]

The Minneapolis Police Dept is now outnumbered and outgunned 3:1 by an out of state white supremacist gang with military grade weapons. That's how we need to think and talk about this.

NOW: "Why you want my ID? You trying to steal my identity?" Uber driver at Minneapolis Airport confronts CBP Agents who were checking driver's citizenship, "Why did you shoot that woman?" he added

@bayeslord Plants might be conscious. LLMs, no.

happy saturday - the llms might be conscious - china isn't going to cooperate on ai, they might pretend to though - making ai reliable, trustworthy, etc is very important work - accelerate or die

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Everyone—and not just @theinformation—should be genuinely terrified that the richest man in the world has built a Large Language Model that spouts propaganda in his image. This isn’t free speech. It’s a massive, massive thumb on the scale, from one of the most powerful yet unelected people in the world. If that doesn’t scare you, you aren’t paying attention.

A better term for LLM-generated errors than "hallucinate": *Chatsplaining*

@walterkirn Just wait til many people's social world consists mainly of AI friends and loves. Seemingly ingratiating and independent, actually manipulative on behalf of their owner corporation. nytimes.com/2025/01/15/tec…

Mostly due to the fact that reality is mediated as never before, people are deceived in small and large ways more times per day than ever before in history. (Think of the baseline as a day alone in the woods, then compare it to a day on the phone.) The antidote is to abide as much as possible in a world beyond or behind or before the senses -- a Platonic or spiritual world, one might say -- and this urge is becoming irresistible too many, especially as they realize that the essence of being deceived is to lose power to the deceivers The flight to the invisible world, to the more stable "world of forms," if one can call it that, will not abate

'Companies Flaunt Basic Cyber Hygiene' @wsj headline over article about companies FLOUTING basic... human error or AI headline writer?

After watching the racism dial turn further and further on this site, I decided to try and publicly make as definitive a case as I could. We're so far past the point of no return that I'm out of excuses for myself. Been a good 15+ year run. Bye! theatlantic.com/technology/arc…

Are we seeing the end of human-made art? @judithd, @marthafiennes and @JohnRalstonSaul debate how worried we should be about AI advancements in generating art, music and literature. iai.tv/video/ai-and-t…

@Adrian081983276 @AuschwitzMuseum Hopefully the future will not provide a vivid illustration to answer your question

@AuschwitzMuseum How in God's name was it ever possible? 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏💔💔💔💔💔

28 October 1942 | SS men executed by shooting some 280 Poles at the German camp Auschwitz I. The execution took place at the Death Wall located at the courtyard of Block 11. Some were killed when they tried to resist in the corridor inside the block. This was a retaliation for sabotage and partisan actions carried out in the Lublin area, and the victims of the executions were mainly prisoners deported from prisons in Lublin and Radom in 1941 and 1942. Captain Witold Pilecki wrote about this execution in his report: "On 28 October 1942 in the morning roll-call, clerks (Schreiber) in various blocks began to summon some numbers of prisoners and told them they should go to the “Erkennungsdienst” for a verification of photographs. In total, two hundred forty and several people were summoned - exclusively Poles - as we found out later, mainly of the Lublin region, including one fourth of Poles who had nothing in common with the Lublin transports, and were carried initially to block 3, which itself aroused our suspicions why not to block 26 at once, where the “Erkennungsdienst” was located – the sham reason of the summon. We were called by a bell to our “Arbeitskommando” and then we went outside the camp as usually, each commando bound for its work place. At work, our colleagues in all commandos were seething - we did not know then if they were in some danger. Later, news was spread that they were to be executed. Two hundred and forty fellows – mainly evident inhabitants of the Lublin region, to whom some numbers of those whose activity, energy was evident, were added - apparently having selected them from all over the camp through Grabner's "curs". We did not even get to know by what they were guided, maybe the mere "sweet will" of the two scoundrels was decisive. Yet it was called a "pacification of the Lublin region", which re-echoed in such way in the camp… Such high number of prisoners had not been executed at once so far…. Our colleagues murdered on 28 October 1942 knew of what was in store for them. In block 3 they were told they would be executed by firing, they throw paper scraps to their colleagues who were to live, asking them deliver to their families. They made a decision to die “in a joyful spirit”, so that they would be told about well in the evening. Let somebody say, we Poles cannot do that.... Those who saw that picture told they would never forget it. From block 3, between 14 and 15, between the kitchen and blocks 16, 17 and 18 and further straight on between the hospital blocks, they went in a column in their fives, they carried their heads up in quiet, smiled faces here and there. They went without any escort. Behind them Palitzsch with rifle on slide and Bruno, both of them smoking cigarettes, talking about irrelevant matters. It sufficed if the last five did “about turn” and the existence of those two butchers would be ceased.. So, why did they go on? Were they in fear for themselves? What should they fear in such moment, when they were walking to death anyway? It looked like psychosis. But they continued to go, because they had some reason for them. Informations, announced in advance by the authorities, confirmed by colleagues coming from freedom, that the whole family was held responsible for a prank of the prisoner, produced the desired effect. It was known that Germans were ruthless in application of repression and they kill families, showing in such cases as much bestiality as they could bring themselves to. How did bestiality look like? - was there anyone who knew it better than we? To know or to see that your wife, mother, children were in such conditions, as women here in Brzezinka, was enough to paralyse any desire to attack the butchers… So they went on... Near the canteen (a wooden one in a small square behind block 21), the column going between block21 and 27, seemed to stop, to hesitate, was near to go straight on. But it was one short moment, it turned square to the left and went just to the gate of block 11, just to the jaws of death. Not before the gate had closed after them and they were left there for several hours - they were to be executed in the afternoon - under the influence of an anticipation of death, various doubts began to come out of recesses of mind and there were five colleagues who incited to seize the whole camp, to start action here. They barricaded the gate and more serious things could probably occur, as the Germans had not reinforced the guard and all our commandos were waiting for a signal, were it not that the protest against death did not go beyond block 11 at all. Except for that five, nobody allowed to be carried away and a Silesian, a functionary of that block, informed SS-men of the seeds of mutiny, so Palitzsch accompanied by several SS-men arrived at the block and disposed of those several prisoners, killing them first of all and leaving the rest for later on… In the afternoon, they all were dead.”

@BKCHarvard @zittrain @griffinmuseum very good discussion! (and some debating -- e.g. I am not worried that we'll ru n out of styles. No one in 1900 anticipated Cubism, hip-hop, the writings of Joyce and Faulkner.)

“We are now going to be tested on our moral instincts about what an artist can say on their own… what happens when all the styles are taken? Can we even make an original song?” - @zittrain at tonight’s @griffinmuseum panel on AI, Ethics, and Social Media with @judithd

From generated realities to post-real postings--we'll be talking about AI, art, and evidence at the Griffin Museum tomorrow (Wed) evening. See griffinmuseum.org/event/ai_ethic… for more info and livestream

AI, creativity, and truth in visual imaging - where better to discuss it than a museum? Join @zittrain and @judithd at the @griffinmuseum in Winchester, MA or online next Weds 10/23 at 6:30 pm. griffinmuseum.org/event/ai_ethic…

@nxthompson Exactly

My debate rankings this season: 1) Harris. Perfect execution. Brilliant at getting under his skin. 2) Vance. No one watching will think he’s as bad as Palin now. 3) Walz. Stumbling here and there. But reasonable. 4) Trump. Cats and dogs. 5) Biden. Obviously.

NYers could have spared themselves this by following this simple rule: vote for the most cat-friendly candidate nypost.com/2021/06/23/an-…

In English, the word "work" is overloaded, referring both to menial labor and creative effort. Great essay on the ancient history and importance of distinguishing between them

My take on tonight's debate talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/debate-…

I do feel safer knowing he doesn't have the car keys

Trump does not sound like someone who should be around knives or other small household sharps, let alone be the Commander in Chief of the US military