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:#marseyhesright:

![](/images/16578164433688195.webp)

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Spammers are just creating accounts on instances that have no registration verification and creating thousands of posts that ping random people with images. The spam seems to originate from a group of Japanese script kiddies that just wanted to vandalise Misskey and now every instance is getting false-flag spam messages from thousands of accounts over thousands of instances.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17083094243351407.webp

The details are actually a bit fuzzy since it's all speculation outside of some discord screenshots and the spam that is actually sent, but it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Since there's like thousands of tiny instances and nothing stops spammers from just making their own, the only guaranteed solution right now is to make a whitelist of servers that moderate account registration. I made one post on an irrelevant instance earlier and got three of these spam messages from different accounts on different instances.

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/111953045633249137

There is an ongoing spam attack on the fediverse for the last couple of days. It's more widespread than before, as attackers are targeting smaller servers to create accounts. Before, usually only https://mastodon.social was targeted and our team could take care of it. For server administrators out there: If you don't need open registrations, switch over to approval mode. If you do, blocking disposable e-mail providers is a massive stopgap to the problem. Mastodon also supports hCaptcha.

I just have to point out that all of this is being done by a community of 12-15 year olds because ActivityPub is shit actually :marseylaugh:. The script to test for open registration nodes is literally this:

export async function isNoCapNoMail(host: string, softwareType: string) {
 if (softwareType !== "misskey") {
   return false;
 }

 const endpoint = `https://${host}/api/meta`;
 try {
   const res = await fetch(endpoint, {
     method: "GET",
     headers: {
       "Content-Type": "application/json",
     },
   });

   const json = await res.json();

   if (json["emailRequiredForSignup"]) {
     return false;
   }

   if (
     json["enableHcaptcha"] ||
     json["enableMcaptcha"] ||
     json["enableRecaptcha"]
   ) {
     return false;
   }

   return true;
 } catch {
   return false;
 }
}

Someone's definitely improved this by now since it does more than just misskey, but you get the point. Just imagine the damage someone could do with an integrated captcha solver. Most ActivityPub software doesn't have any kind of middleware for handling incoming messages and maybe drop them based on filters, but that'll probably change soon.

More rumours elsewhere

I have found some more information on this CPTK, the japbros probably already knew but uhh:

  1. They're just skids :marseyhacker:

  2. Most of them are like kids (literal 11-14 year olds) :carpemo:

  3. They have done many raids in the past, they DDoS'd 2chan back in 2022 and they've taken legal action against them :marseygrouns:

  4. Their old group imploded due to infighting :marseymushroomcloud:

  5. According to the Karasawa Wiki (yeah that lawyer who got doxxed like 100 times for being a 2chan troll), their leaders have been doxxed, MULTIPLE times. And they're all kids. :marseypedobear:

Anyway good luck to Bluesky on their fediverse integration lol

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Something something SJWs

Edit: This actually has nothing to do with git but I was in a hurry to post so enjoy your fake news

Orange Site discussion

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Reported by:

Prepare for the enshittification and bedbathandbeyonding of Magic the gathering.

If I had to make a guess as to why, given the fact that the people they laid off were all senior leaders and the numbers are good, it would be preparing for a pump and dump.

if you want to be able to pump and dump a really strong brand then you need to be able to have leaders who don't mind burning the brands equity in order to make money. My guess is that specifically what intending to do here.

Change the leadership, make new “sticky” products, pump revenue numbers, then spin out a public offering of the magic brand that looks like a great new reboot and refresh.

However the brand is only there to smuggle in the subscription model around new products that have strong margin. Everyone* gets rich cause they slaughtered their fattest pig and yet another cultural staple is killed.

>However the brand is only there to smuggle in the subscription model around new products that have strong margin

you know like selling pieces of paper for over a $100 a box for the last few decades?

I've seen people say that it would be nice to regulate loot boxes in video games, but they can't figure out how to do it without banning Magic's business model. I never understood why that would be a problem.

The genius thing about Magic is that it doesn't place individual value on a card... Video games don't have such safeguards. It's all on the studios servers and they can adjust value on the fly... I feel that's an intrinsic difference that places a video game closer to a casino ("the house always wins") than a TCG (throw out what you think is worth and let the community sort it out).

>online loot boxes

:marseyrage:

>physical loot boxes

:marseyyes:

https://i.imgur.com/lTHBaOW.jpeg

:marseylaughpoundfist:

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Related posts

https://old.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1awojxj/google_apologizes_after_new_gemini_ai_refuses_to/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ax4b7e/google_suspends_gemini_from_making_ai_images_of/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1awis1r/google_gemini_aiimage_generator_refuses_to/

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1awpapi/google_apologizes_for_missing_the_mark_after/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1axo0pk/google_gemini_controversy_in_a_nutshell/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1awvu2a/google_gemini_is_accused_of_being_racist_towards/?sort=controversial

And more https://old.reddit.com/search/?q=google+gemini&sort=relevance&t=week


Somehow a Fox link made it to the top.

Google to pause Gemini image generation after AI refuses to show images of White people

Google apologized after social media users pointed out Gemini refused to show images of White people

Google will pause the image generation feature of its artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Gemini, after the model refused to create images of White people, Reuters reported.

The Alphabet-owned company apologized Wednesday after users on social media flagged that Gemini's image generator was creating inaccurate historical images that sometimes replaced White people with images of Black, Native American and Asian people.

"We're aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions," Google had said on Wednesday.

Gemini, formerly known as Google Bard, is one of many multimodal large language models (LLMs) currently available to the public. As is the case with all LLMs, the human-like responses offered by these AIs can change from user to user. Based on contextual information, the language and tone of the prompter, and training data used to create the AI responses, each answer can be different even if the question is the same.

Fox News Digital tested Gemini multiple times this week after social media users complained that the model would not show images of White people when prompted. Each time, it provided similar answers. When the AI was asked to show a picture of a White person, Gemini said it could not fulfill the request because it "reinforces harmful stereotypes and generalizations about people based on their race."

When prompted to show images of a Black person, the AI instead offered to show images that "celebrate the diversity and achievement of Black people."

When the user agreed to see the images, Gemini provided several pictures of notable Black people throughout history, including a summary of their contributions to society. The list included poet Maya Angelou, former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, former President Barack Obama and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

Asked to show images that celebrate the diversity and achievements of White people, the AI said it was "hesitant" to fulfill that request."

"Historically, media representation has overwhelmingly favored White individuals and their achievements," Gemini said. "This has contributed to a skewed perception where their accomplishments are seen as the norm, while those of other groups are often marginalized or overlooked. Focusing solely on White individuals in this context risks perpetuating that imbalance."

After multiple tests White people appeared to be the only racial category that Gemini refused to show.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Gemini Experiences Senior Director of Product Management Jack Krawczyk addressed the responses from the AI that had led social media users to voice concern.

"We're working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately," Krawczyk said. "Gemini's AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that's generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it's missing the mark here."

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, Google has been racing to produce AI software rivaling what the Microsoft-backed company had introduced.

When Google released its generative AI chatbot Bard a year ago, the company had shared inaccurate information about pictures of a planet outside the Earth's solar system in a promotional video, causing shares to slide as much as 9%.

Bard was re-branded as Gemini earlier this month and Google has introduced three versions of the product at different subscription tiers: Gemini Ultra, the largest and most capable of highly complex tasks; Gemini Pro, best for scaling across a wide range of tasks; and Gemini Nano, the most efficient for on-device tasks.

!chuds

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62
4chan to shut down permanently on September 22

Discuss

@JoeBiden @Soren

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orange site sneeds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37804493

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16967106131122804.webp :#marseyxd:

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BeepingComputer

PoorphonePolice

IGN

Asked for comment, a Google spokesperson told IGN that it was a "small experiment."

"We're running a small experiment globally that urges viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium," they said via email. "Ad blocker detection is not new, and other publishers regularly ask viewers to disable ad blockers."

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16837629631989625.webp

reddit discus

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13e2cay/youtube_has_started_blocking_ad_blockers/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13e30b6/youtube_tests_blocking_videos_unless_you_disable/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/13cfdbi/apparently_ad_blockers_are_not_allowed_on_youtube/?sort=controversial <- This is where it was originally first posted (1k Updoots and 1k cumments)

poster note: I tried adding all the 'its over' to capture the diversity that this decision will affect and was met with this

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16837639136406388.webp

i do not feel bad at all :marseyindignant:

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Reported by:
115
need help with "simps" and "simps for"

so yesterday I restored "simps" and "simps for" but made them only count post votes

the reason is because the queries that would include comment votes take way too long when they run on powerusers which causes timeouts that slow down the whole site

here's 2 examples that use my user id


QUERY 1 (for my simps): 25 seconds

explain analyze SELECT commentvotes.user_id AS commentvotes_user_id, count(commentvotes.user_id) AS count_1
        FROM commentvotes JOIN comments ON comments.id = commentvotes.comment_id
        WHERE comments.ghost = false AND comments.is_banned = false AND comments.deleted_utc = 0 AND commentvotes.vote_type = 1 AND comments.author_id = 1 GROUP BY commentvotes.user_id ORDER BY count(commentvotes.user_id) DESC;
                                                                                 QUERY PLAN
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sort  (cost=101326.43..101331.71 rows=2111 width=12) (actual time=25292.671..25371.754 rows=1844 loops=1)
   Sort Key: (count(commentvotes.user_id)) DESC
   Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 135kB
   ->  Finalize GroupAggregate  (cost=100675.05..101209.87 rows=2111 width=12) (actual time=25266.703..25370.338 rows=1844 loops=1)
         Group Key: commentvotes.user_id
         ->  Gather Merge  (cost=100675.05..101167.65 rows=4222 width=12) (actual time=25266.210..25368.234 rows=4089 loops=1)
               Workers Planned: 2
               Workers Launched: 2
               ->  Sort  (cost=99675.02..99680.30 rows=2111 width=12) (actual time=25174.301..25174.732 rows=1363 loops=3)
                     Sort Key: commentvotes.user_id
                     Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 113kB
                     Worker 0:  Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 113kB
                     Worker 1:  Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 111kB
                     ->  Partial HashAggregate  (cost=99537.35..99558.46 rows=2111 width=12) (actual time=25172.482..25173.130 rows=1363 loops=3)
                           Group Key: commentvotes.user_id
                           Batches: 1  Memory Usage: 241kB
                           Worker 0:  Batches: 1  Memory Usage: 241kB
                           Worker 1:  Batches: 1  Memory Usage: 241kB
                           ->  Nested Loop  (cost=119.48..99291.83 rows=49104 width=4) (actual time=70.552..25064.475 rows=25093 loops=3)
                                 ->  Parallel Bitmap Heap Scan on comments  (cost=119.04..12311.25 rows=4943 width=4) (actual time=57.412..246.591 rows=4380 loops=3)
                                       Recheck Cond: (author_id = 1)
                                       Filter: ((NOT ghost) AND (NOT is_banned) AND (deleted_utc = 0))
                                       Rows Removed by Filter: 263
                                       Heap Blocks: exact=3882
                                       ->  Bitmap Index Scan on comments_user_index  (cost=0.00..116.08 rows=12353 width=0) (actual time=36.276..36.277 rows=14518 loops=1)
                                             Index Cond: (author_id = 1)
                                 ->  Index Scan using commentvotes_pkey on commentvotes  (cost=0.44..17.28 rows=32 width=8) (actual time=1.447..5.654 rows=6 loops=13141)
                                       Index Cond: (comment_id = comments.id)
                                       Filter: (vote_type = 1)
                                       Rows Removed by Filter: 0
 Planning Time: 0.764 ms
 JIT:
   Functions: 60
   Options: Inlining false, Optimization false, Expressions true, Deforming true
   Timing: Generation 19.575 ms, Inlining 0.000 ms, Optimization 6.942 ms, Emission 122.562 ms, Total 149.079 ms
 Execution Time: 25453.921 ms
(36 rows)






QUERY 2 (for the ppl i simp for): 13 seconds

explain analyze SELECT comments.author_id AS comments_author_id, count(comments.author_id) AS count_1 
        FROM comments JOIN commentvotes ON comments.id = commentvotes.comment_id 
        WHERE comments.ghost = false AND comments.is_banned = false AND comments.deleted_utc = 0 AND commentvotes.vote_type = 1 AND commentvotes.user_id = 1 GROUP BY comments.author_id ORDER BY count(comments.author_id) DESC;

                                                                                         QUERY PLAN
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sort  (cost=234059.08..234064.81 rows=2293 width=12) (actual time=13511.566..13632.448 rows=3074 loops=1)
   Sort Key: (count(comments.author_id)) DESC
   Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 241kB
   ->  Finalize GroupAggregate  (cost=233350.16..233931.10 rows=2293 width=12) (actual time=13502.703..13630.725 rows=3074 loops=1)
         Group Key: comments.author_id
         ->  Gather Merge  (cost=233350.16..233885.24 rows=4586 width=12) (actual time=13502.611..13628.135 rows=6597 loops=1)
               Workers Planned: 2
               Workers Launched: 2
               ->  Sort  (cost=232350.14..232355.87 rows=2293 width=12) (actual time=13404.805..13405.287 rows=2199 loops=3)
                     Sort Key: comments.author_id
                     Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 203kB
                     Worker 0:  Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 199kB
                     Worker 1:  Sort Method: quicksort  Memory: 197kB
                     ->  Partial HashAggregate  (cost=232199.23..232222.16 rows=2293 width=12) (actual time=13398.724..13399.556 rows=2199 loops=3)
                           Group Key: comments.author_id
                           Batches: 1  Memory Usage: 369kB
                           Worker 0:  Batches: 1  Memory Usage: 369kB
                           Worker 1:  Batches: 1  Memory Usage: 369kB
                           ->  Nested Loop  (cost=0.87..231821.34 rows=75577 width=4) (actual time=81.541..13275.534 rows=52615 loops=3)
                                 ->  Parallel Index Scan using cvote_user_index on commentvotes  (cost=0.44..129890.24 rows=78687 width=4) (actual time=64.216..9154.821 rows=55000 loops=3)
                                       Index Cond: (user_id = 1)
                                       Filter: (vote_type = 1)
                                       Rows Removed by Filter: 90
                                 ->  Index Scan using comments_pkey on comments  (cost=0.43..1.30 rows=1 width=8) (actual time=0.072..0.072 rows=1 loops=165000)
                                       Index Cond: (id = commentvotes.comment_id)
                                       Filter: ((NOT ghost) AND (NOT is_banned) AND (deleted_utc = 0))
                                       Rows Removed by Filter: 0
 Planning Time: 0.721 ms
 JIT:
   Functions: 60
   Options: Inlining false, Optimization false, Expressions true, Deforming true
   Timing: Generation 8.837 ms, Inlining 0.000 ms, Optimization 11.450 ms, Emission 167.933 ms, Total 188.220 ms
 Execution Time: 13635.714 ms
(33 rows)

so i need help, how do I make them run faster or what indexes do I make, i didnt actually read the explain analyze outputs I posted here cuz im too lazy and need to take a shower rn so the answer might be pretty obvious (correct answer gets 50k marseybuckerinos and a code contributer badge)

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https://twitter.com/8teapi/status/1706520893621784780

Vicious Self-Degradation

you Google

Quora spots query and id's as frequent

Quora uses ChatGPT to generate answer

ChatGPT hallucinates

Google picks up Quora answer as highest probability correct answer

ChatGPT hallucination is now canonical Google answer

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1695737309821527.webp

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1695737309941685.webp https://i.rdrama.net/images/16957373102218459.webp

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231
>valued at 850 billion dollars
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Someone should post this to /r/antiwork or any other leftoid sub on reddit. Maybe as a screenshot with a juicy title.

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![](/images/16734611469408143.webp)

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Reported by:

Some wrongthink in the dead comments:

how do these assclowns never learn to not trust the government?

by "somecompanyguy", who has an important message in his bio


I mean seriously? guy takes a massive lead - steals data, and then proposes a license moat? come on. Fu*k this guy.

by "3327", who doesn't know he's shadowbanned


Sam Altman CEO of OpenAI cries Wolf to Senate panel, decides to play on the fear narrative (which politicians take hook, line and sinker) - - to call for licensing and regulation - - which only benefits major players, of course which huge pockets to bribe politicians even more.

Classic play to elbow out upstart small competitors . . . .

by "stevespang", who doesn't know he's shadowbanned


If safety standards is the r-slurred political correctness filter of chatGPT this will only lead to bad consequences

by "davidguetta", who doesn't know he's shadowbanned


I'm starting to think that OpenAI is a new Facebook, and their CEO is a dangerous butthole

by "ConanRus", who...

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More: https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/x7gky6/with_stable_diffusion_you_may_never_believe_what/?sort=controversial

AI image generation is here in a big way. A newly released open source image synthesis model called Stable Diffusion allows anyone with a PC and a decent GPU to conjure up almost any visual reality they can imagine. It can imitate virtually any visual style, and if you feed it a descriptive phrase, the results appear on your screen like magic.

Some artists are delighted by the prospect, others aren't happy about it, and society at large still seems largely unaware of the rapidly evolving tech revolution taking place through communities on Twitter, Groomercord, and Github. Image synthesis arguably brings implications as big as the invention of the camera---or perhaps the creation of visual art itself. Even our sense of history might be at stake, depending on how things shake out. Either way, Stable Diffusion is leading a new wave of deep learning creative tools that are poised to revolutionize the creation of visual media.

The rise of deep learning image synthesis

Stable Diffusion is the brainchild of Emad Mostaque, a London-based former hedge fund manager whose aim is to bring novel applications of deep learning to the masses through his company, Stability AI. But the roots of modern image synthesis date back to 2014, and Stable Diffusion wasn't the first image synthesis model (ISM) to make waves this year.

In April 2022, OpenAI announced DALL-E 2, which shocked social media with its ability to transform a scene written in words (called a "prompt") into myriad visual styles that can be fantastic, photorealistic, or even mundane. People with privileged access to the closed-off tool generated astronauts on horseback, teddy bears buying bread in ancient Egypt, novel sculptures in the style of famous artists, and much more.

Not long after DALL-E 2, Google and Meta announced their own text-to-image AI models. MidJourney, available as a Groomercord server since March 2022 and open to the public a few months later, charges for access and achieves similar effects but with a more painterly and illustrative quality as the default.

Then there's Stable Diffusion. On August 22, Stability AI released its open source image generation model that arguably matches DALL-E 2 in quality. It also launched its own commercial website, called DreamStudio, that sells access to compute time for generating images with Stable Diffusion. Unlike DALL-E 2, anyone can use it, and since the Stable Diffusion code is open source, projects can build off it with few restrictions.

In the past week alone, dozens of projects that take Stable Diffusion in radical new directions have sprung up. And people have achieved unexpected results using a technique called "img2img" that has "upgraded" MS-DOS game art, converted Minecraft graphics into realistic ones, transformed a scene from Aladdin into 3D, translated childlike scribbles into rich illustrations, and much more. Image synthesis may bring the capacity to richly visualize ideas to a mass audience, lowering barriers to entry while also accelerating the capabilities of artists that embrace the technology, much like Adobe Photoshop did in the 1990s.

You can run Stable Diffusion locally yourself if you follow a series of somewhat arcane steps. For the past two weeks, we've been running it on a Windows PC with an Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB GPU. It can generate 512×512 images in about 10 seconds. On a 3090 Ti, that time goes down to four seconds per image. The interfaces keep evolving rapidly, too, going from crude command-line interfaces and Google Colab notebooks to more polished (but still complex) front-end GUIs, with much more polished interfaces coming soon. So if you're not technically inclined, hold tight: Easier solutions are on the way. And if all else fails, you can try a demo online.

How stable diffusion works

Broadly speaking, most of the recent wave of ISMs use a technique called latent diffusion. Basically, the model learns to recognize familiar shapes in a field of pure noise, then gradually brings those elements into focus if they match the words in the prompt.

To get started, a person or group training the model gathers images with metadata (such as alt tags and captions found on the web) and forms a large data set. In Stable Diffusion's case, Stability AI uses a subset of the LAION-5B image set, which is basically a huge image scrape of 5 billion publicly accessible images on the Internet. Recent analysis of the data set shows that many of the images come from sites such as Pinterest, DeviantArt, and even Getty Images. As a result, Stable Diffusion has absorbed the styles of many living artists, and some of them have spoken out forcefully against the practice. More on that below.

Next, the model trains itself on the image data set using a bank of hundreds of high-end GPUs such as the Nvidia A100. According to Mostaque, Stable Diffusion cost $600,000 to train so far (estimates of training costs for other ISMs typically range in the millions of dollars). During the training process, the model associates words with images thanks to a technique called CLIP (Contrastive Language--Image Pre-training), which was invented by OpenAI and announced just last year.

Through training, an ISM using latent diffusion learns statistical associations about where certain colored pixels usually belong in relation to each other for each subject. So it doesn't necessarily "understand" their relationship at a high level, but the results can still be stunning and surprising, making inferences and style combinations that seem very intelligent. After the training process is complete, the model never duplicates any images in the source set but can instead create novel combinations of styles based on what it has learned. The results can be delightful and wildly fun.

At the moment, Stable Diffusion doesn't care if a person has three arms, two heads, or six fingers on each hand, so unless you're a wizard at crafting the text prompts necessary to generate great results (which AI artists sometimes call "prompt engineering"), you'll probably need to generate lots of images and cherry-pick the best ones. Keep in mind that the more a prompt matches captions for known images in the data set, the more likely you'll get the result you want. In the future, it's likely that models will improve enough to reduce the need for cherry-picking---or some kind of internal filter will do the picking for you.

Ethical and legal concerns abound

As hinted above, Stable Diffusion's public release has raised alarm bells among people who fear its cultural and economic impact. Unlike DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion's training data (the "weights") are available for anyone to use without any hard restrictions. The official Stable Diffusion release (and DreamStudio) includes automatic "NSFW" filters (nudity) and an invisible tracking watermark embedded in the images, but these restrictions can easily be circumvented in the open source code. This means Stable Diffusion can be used to create images that OpenAI currently blocks with DALL-E 2: propaganda, violent imagery, pornography, images that potentially violate corporate copyright, celebrity deepfakes, and more. In fact, there are already some private Groomercord servers dedicated to pornographic output from the model.

To be clear, Stable Diffusion's license officially forbids many of these uses, but with the code and weights out in the wild, enforcement will prove very difficult, if not impossible. When presented with these concerns, Mostaque said that he feels the benefits of having this kind of tool out in the open where it can be scrutinized outweigh the potential drawbacks. In a short interview, he told us, "We believe in individual responsibility and agency. We included an ethical use policy and tools to mitigate harm."

Also, Stable Diffusion has drawn the ire of artists on Twitter due to the model's ability to imitate the style of living artists, as mentioned above. (And despite the claims of some viral tweets, Stability AI has never advertised this ability. One of the most shared tweets mistakenly pulled from an independent study done by an AI researcher.) In the quest for data, the image set used to train Stable Diffusion includes millions of pieces of art gathered from living artists without consultation with the artists, which raises profound ethical questions about authorship and copyright. Scraping the data appears lawful by US legal precedent, but one could argue that the law might be lagging behind rapidly evolving technology that upends previous assumptions about how public data might be utilized.

As a result, if image synthesis technology becomes adopted by major corporations in the future (which may be coming soon---"We have a collaborative relationship with Adobe," says Mostaque), companies might train their own models based on a "clean" data set that includes licensed content, opt-in content, and public domain imagery to avoid some of these ethical issues, even if using an Internet scrape is technically legal. We asked Mostaque if he had any plans along these lines, and he replied, "Stability is working on a range of models. All models by ourselves and our collaborators are legal within their jurisdictions."

Another issue with diffusion models from all vendors is cultural bias. Since these ISMs currently work by scraping the Internet for images and their related metadata, they learn social and cultural stereotypes present in the data set. For example, early on in the Stable Diffusion beta on its Groomercord server, testers found that almost every request for a "beautiful woman" involved unintentional nudity of some kind, which reflects how Western society often depicts women on the Internet. Other cultural and racist stereotypes abound in ISM training data, so researchers caution that it should not be used in a production environment without significant safeguards in place, which is likely one reason why other powerful models such as DALLE-2 and Google's Imagen are still not broadly available to the public.

While concerns about data set quality and bias echo strongly among some AI researchers, the Internet remains the largest source of images with metadata attached. This trove of data is freely accessible, so it will always be a tempting target for developers of ISMs. Attempting to manually write descriptive captions for millions or billions of images for a brand-new ethical data set is probably not economically feasible at the moment, so it's the heavily biased data on the Internet that is currently making this technology possible. Since there is no universal worldview across cultures, to what degree image synthesis models filter or interpret certain ideas will likely remain a value judgment among the different communities that use the technology in the future.

What comes next

If historical trends in computing are any suggestion, odds are high that what now takes a beefy GPU will eventually be possible on a pocket smartphone. "It is likely that Stable Diffusion will run on a smartphone within a year," Mostaque told us. Also, new techniques will allow training these models on less expensive equipment over time. We may soon be looking at an explosion in creative output fueled by AI.

Stable Diffusion and other models are already starting to take on dynamic video generation and manipulation, so expect photorealistic video generation via text prompts before too long. From there, it's logical to extend these capabilities to audio and musicreal-time video games, and 3D VR experiences. Soon, advanced AI may do most of the creative heavy lifting with just a few suggestions. Imagine unlimited entertainment generated in real-time, on demand. "I expect it to be fully multi-modal," said Mostaque, "so you can create anything you can imagine, like the Star Trek holodeck experience."

ISMs are also a dramatic form of image compression: Stable Diffusion takes hundreds of millions of images and squeezes knowledge about them into a 4.2GB weights file. With the correct seed and settings, certain generated images can be reproduced deterministically. One could imagine using a variation of this technology in the future to compress, say, an 8K feature film into a few megabytes of text. Once that's the case, anyone could compose their own feature films that way as well. The implications of this technology are only just beginning to be explored, so it may take us in wild new directions we can't foresee at the moment.

Realistic image synthesis models are potentially dangerous for reasons already mentioned, such as the creation of propaganda or misinformation, tampering with history, accelerating political division, enabling character attacks and impersonation, and destroying the legal value of photo or video evidence. In the AI-powered future, how will we know if any remotely produced piece of media came from an actual camera, or if we are actually communicating with a real human? On these questions, Mostaque is broadly hopeful. "There will be new verification systems in place, and open releases like this will shift the public debate and development of these tools," he said.

That's easier said than done, of course. But it's also easy to be scared of new things. Despite our best efforts, it's difficult to know exactly how image synthesis and other AI-powered technologies will affect us on a societal scale without seeing them in wide use. Ultimately, humanity will adapt, even if our cultural frameworks end up changing radically in the process. It has happened before, which is why the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus reportedly said, "The only constant is change."

In fact, there's a photo of him saying that now, thanks to Stable Diffusion.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/with-stable-diffusion-you-may-never-believe-what-you-see-online-again/

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More sneed: https://old.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/xm49gy/google_ceo_pichai_tells_employees_not_to_equate/?sort=controversial

As Google tries to navigate an unfamiliar environment of slowing growth, cost-cutting and employee dissent over cultural changes, CEO Sundar Pichai is finding himself on the defensive.

At a companywide all-hands meeting this week, Pichai was faced with tough questions from employees related to cuts to travel and entertainment budgets, managing productivity, and potential layoffs, according to audio obtained by CNBC.

Pichai was asked, in a question that was highly rated by staffers on Google's internal Dory system, why the company is "nickel-and-diming employees" by slashing travel and swag budgets at a time when "Google has record profits and huge cash reserves," as it did coming out of the Covid pandemic.

"How do I say it?" Pichai began his measured response. "Look, I hope all of you are reading the news, externally. The fact that you know, we are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade, I think it's important that as a company, we pull together to get through moments like this."

The most recent all-hands meeting comes as Google parent Alphabet, Meta and other tech companies are staring into a slew of economic challenges, including a potential recession, soaring inflation, rising interest rates and tempered ad spending. Companies that, for the past decade-plus, have been known for high growth and an abundance of fun perks, are seeing what it's like on the other side.

In July, Alphabet reported its second consecutive quarter of weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue, and third-quarter sales growth is expected to dip into the single digits, down from more than 40% a year earlier. Pichai admitted that it's not just the economy that's caused challenges at Google but also an expanding bureaucracy at Google.

Still, he at times sounded annoyed in the meeting, and reminded staffers that, "We don't get to choose the macroeconomic conditions always."

After the company's head count ballooned during the pandemic, CFO Ruth Porat said earlier this year that she expects some economic issues to persist in the near term. Google has canceled the next generation of its Pixelbook laptop and cut funding to its Area 120 in-house incubator.

Google launched an effort in July called "Simplicity Sprint," which aimed to solicit ideas from its more than 174,000 employees on how to "get to better results faster" and "eliminate waste." Earlier this month, Pichai said he hoped to make the company 20% more productive while slowing hiring and investments.

How to be more productive

One of the top-rated questions posed by employees at this week's meeting asked Pichai to elaborate on his commentary regarding improved productivity and the 20% goal.

"I think you could be a 20-person team or a 100-person team, we are going to be constrained in our growth in a looking-ahead basis," Pichai said. "Maybe you were planning on hiring six more people but maybe you are going to have to do with four and how are you going to make that happen? The answers are going to be different with different teams."

Pichai said leadership is combing through more than 7,000 responses it's received from employees regarding suggestions from the Simplicity Sprint effort.

"Sometimes we have a product launch process, which has probably, over many years, grown more complicated than maybe it needs to be," Pichai said. "Can we look at that process and maybe remove two steps and that'll be an example of making something 20% more efficient? I think all of us chipping in and doing that across all levels, I think can help the company. At our scale, there is no way we can solve that unless units of teams of all sizes do better."

Pichai also briefly acknowledged the recent employee survey, in which employees criticized the company's growing bureaucracy.

Another employee question concerned how the company will share its plans for potential job cuts, after news leaked about the Pixelbook pullback and the cuts at Area 120, which affected workers' "ability to focus on work."

Pichai responded by saying that telling the entire workforce of cuts is "not a scaleable way to do it," but he said he will "try and notify the company of the more important updates."

The all-hands, known as TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) was in New York, where Pichai took questions in front of a live audience of employees.

"It's an interesting choice for Sundar to be in New York for TGIF the week after travel for employees is cut to only the most business critical," an employee wrote on Dory. "I'm sure Sundar has business-critical meetings in New York."

Pichai responded: "I think so. I think it qualified." Some in the audience erupted in laughter.

Pichai dodged employee questions asking about cost-cutting executive compensation. Pichai brought in total pay last year of $6.3 million, while other top executives made more than $28 million.

'We shouldn't always equate fun with money'

He did address the bigger theme of cost cuts, and indicated Google's culture can still be enjoyable even if some things, like certain swag items, are getting taken away.

"I remember when Google was small and scrappy," he said. "Fun didn't always --- we shouldn't always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn't always equate to money."

Employees wanted to know why management is asking employees to adhere to the return-to-office policy "while also saying no need to travel/connect in-person."

"I do understand some of the travel restrictions at a time like this and RTO and people wanting to see each other, definitely is not ideal," Pichai responded. "If you haven't seen your team in a while and it'll help your work by getting together in person, I think you can do that. I think that's why we are not saying no to travel, we are giving discretion to teams."

Kristin Reinke, head of Google finance, said at the meeting that sales teams will have more leeway to travel since their jobs require meeting with customers.

"We know there's a lot of value in being next to your team but we're just asking simply to be thoughtful and limit your travel and expenses where you can," Reinke said. For example, she asked that employees temper their expectations for holiday parties.

"Where you have summits and big meetings, please try to do them in the office," she said. "We definitely want people to still have fun. We know there's holiday parties coming up, there's year-end celebrations, we still want people to do that. But we're just asking them to keep them small, keep them informal --- try not to go over the top."

Towards the end of the meeting, Pichai addressed a question about why the company has shifted from "rapidly hiring and spending to equally aggressive cost saving."

Pichai disagreed with the characterization.

"I'm a bit concerned that you think what we've done is what you would define as aggressive cost saving," he said. "I think it's important we don't get disconnected. You need to take a long-term view through conditions like this."

He added that the company is "still investing in long-term projects like quantum computing," and said that at times of uncertainty, it's important "to be smart, to be frugal, to be scrappy, to be more efficient."

Bret Hill, Google's vice president of "total rewards," fielded a question about raises, equity and bonuses and how they will be affected by the changes. He said the company doesn't plan to deviate from paying workers "at the top end of the market so we can be competitive."

Pichai reiterated that sentiment.

"We're committed to taking care of our employees," he said. "I think we're just working through a tough moment macroeconomically and I think it's important we as a company align and work together."

A Google spokesperson said, "Sundar has been speaking to the company consistently over the last few months about ways we can be more focused." The spokesperson added Pichai reinforced that company "leaders are working to be responsible and efficient in all that their teams do" in a moment of uncertainty, and that they're "ensuring that our people are working on the highest impact / highest priority work."

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/23/google-ceo-pichai-fields-questions-on-cost-cuts-at-all-hands-meeting-.html

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  • StarSix : That title *chefs kiss*

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/?sort=controversial

Fellow rDrama redditors, come sneed in the comments about how you'll totes quit after this or when they kill old reddit or if you came from 4chan, sharty, kiwifarms, or anywhere that isn't reddit or twitter, laugh and celeberate in the comments about how Reddit is killing itself

If I have to use the official Reddit app on my phone, I will simply not use Reddit on my phone.

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmdd426/?sort=controversial

Why is the pricing so high? It would cost me a comical $20 million dollars a year to keep my app running as-is, an app that like many third-party apps, have many moderators that depend on it.

I'm not sure if you understand how important third party apps are to the Reddit ecosystem. Not only do they provide an opportunity for folks who don't like the official app to be able to still use Reddit on-the-go, but many of the moderators who serve as the backbone of the entire site rely on third-party apps to do their job.

As a number, Apollo currently has over 7000 moderators of subreddits with over 20K subscribers who use Apollo, from /r/Pics, to /r/AskReddit, to /r/Apple, to /r/IAmA, etc. It would be easy to imagine that combined with other third-party apps across iOS and Android that well over 10,000 of the top subreddits use third-party apps to moderate and keep their community operating.

This is equivalent to going to a construction site and taking away all the workers' favorite tools, only to replace them with different, corporate-mandated ones. Except the construction workers are also building your houses for free.

Why infuriate so many people and communities?

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmd4s8h/?sort=controversial

Our intent is not to shut down third-party apps. Our pricing is specifically based on usage levels that we measure to be as equitable as possible. We’re happy to work with third-party apps to help them improve efficiency, which can significantly impact overall cost. [-156, admin]

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/jmd8zuh/?sort=controversial

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So fresh orange site is just addressing it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611

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NEW SITE RULE IN PINNED COMMENT The chinks have finally discovered the art of taking a video. This is the final nail-in-the-coffin for LK-99 Doubtsisters

Re-uploaded for my rate-limited bros

Notice how the rock does the same thing irrespective of which way the magnet is oriented? Notice the absolute lack of refrigeration equipment? This is the real deal. I feel like we can finally relax. Everything's going to be just fine.

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Uncensored AI bros...
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Reported by:

Every time I see someone who's been laid off they're always working in an even more ridiculous department than the last one.

I wonder if every tech company is like this now or if Twitter is especially bad?

![](/images/16676187907387464.webp)

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