(biologist - artist - queer)

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You’re the only magician that could make a falling horse turn into thirteen gerbils

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • The fact this has 40 up votes right now makes me feel like lemmy is losing a diverse user base. Like, where are the women to down vote this obviously shitty take?

    Let’s list some reasons why these women could have done this that aren’t “women are sluts for clown daddies”:

    • he’s their boss, and leveraging his insane power over them to make it hard to say no and keep their job
    • he’s just an extremely powerful man and they’re afraid of pissing him off
    • they have insecurities, (like the “loser cuck” fallacy!) that they aren’t valuable or desirable as partners, and attention from someone as powerful as him feels like affirmation of their value even if they don’t like him or he treats them badly
    • they understand that, by not resisting his advances, they might be able to provide themselves a link to a financial source that could support them and a child
    • he literally sexually harasses, assaults, or rapes them and they don’t feel like they can criminally pursue one of the richest men in the world

    Like, yeah, some of them might be individuals who have bad taste in men or are shitty people themselves. I’m even certain that some of them are! But damn, can we take the perspective of the woman for one second? It’s not a good look to find yourself agreeing with incels on the internet






  • stoneparchment@possumpat.iotoMemes@lemmy.mlThis is the way
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    3 months ago

    I feel like I’ve seen this take a lot more in the past ~5 years than I did before. Not just that zoos are unethical, but that any animal ownership (or really interaction of any kind) is inherently abusive.

    You’re certainly entitled to feel however you want about animal ownership and act accordingly, but personally I feel like it’s honestly kind of a weird take?

    Humans are obviously not the only species that develops symbiolotic relationships with other organisms (in a diversity of power dynamics), but we are also not the only species who take on specifcally ownership or shepherd roles for other species (like spiders with frog pets, or fungus farmer ants, among many many other examples). Thus, the ontological position this opinion must operate from is that humans are somehow distinct and superior to nature, such that we have separate and unique responsibilities not to engage in mutualistic ownership with other organisms, on the basis that like, we’re somehow “above” that? That we’re so enlightened and knowledgeable that we exist in a category of responsibility distinct from all other organisms?

    Of course, a lot of our relationships to animals can be described as harmful in other terms without needing to take this specific stance. Like, our relationship with many agricultural animals can be critiqued through the harm done to their individual well-beings and through the harm their propagation does to the global environment. Or irresponsible pet owners can be critiqued for how their unwillingness to control the reproduction or predatory abilities of their pets can harm local ecosystems, like an introduced invasive species might. Or valid criticisms of many zoos when they prioritize profits over animal welfare, rehabilitation, ecosystem restoration, and education. Or that the general public picking up wild animals is a problem because it disturbs their fragile ecosystems and traumatizes them, especially when done on the large scale of human populations (but distinctly not for ecological study, wild animal healthcare, education, etc., like Steve Irwin et. al) But none of these are specific criques of the mutualistic ownership relationship itself as much as problems with the way we handle that relationship.

    Idk, I’m interested to understand your opinion, especially if it has detail I’m missing beyond “we shouldn’t have pets, zoos, or farms because we’re better than that”!







  • That’s valid! I agree. I think in this case it would be reasonable for the model to give multiple (or like, at least one, jeez) images with white queens. I don’t disagree with anyone in that sense. I just also don’t think it’s worth pitching a fit when the dumbass model that has been trained to show more racial diversity produces (frankly comical) hallucinations.

    The ethos of the trainers is a good one. Attempting to counter the (demonstrated, measurable) bias of many models toward whiteness is a good choice. I prefer that the trainers choose to address the bias even if it (sometimes, in early versions) makes the model make silly mistakes like this. That’s all.


  • stoneparchment@possumpat.iotoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldAI or DEI?
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    4 months ago
    • it’s true that this would mislead children, but the model could hallucinate about literally anything. Especially at this stage, no one-- children or adults-- should be uncritically accepting what the model states as fact. That said, I agree LLMs need to improve their factual accuracy

    • Although it is highly debated, some scholars suggest Queen Charlotte might have had African ancestry, or that she would be considered a POC by today’s standards. Of course, she reigned in the 17-1800s, but it isn’t entirely outlandish to have a “Queen of Color”, if we aren’t requesting a specific queen or a specific race

    • People of color did live in England in the middle ages? Like not diverse in the way we conceive now, but here are a few papers discussing the racial diversity at the time. It was surely less intermingled than today, but it’s not like these images are impossible

    • Other things are anachronistic or fantastical about these images, such as clothing. Are we worried about children getting the wrong impression of history in that sense?

    • Of course increasing visibility and representation of all kinds of marginalized people is important. I, myself, am disabled, so I care about that representation too-- thanks for pointing out how we could improve the model further. I do kinda feel like people would be groaning if the model had produced a Queen with a visible disability, though… I would be delighted to be wrong on this front :)


  • stoneparchment@possumpat.iotoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldAI or DEI?
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    4 months ago

    It’s also like, I guess I would prefer it to make mistakes like this if it means it is less biased towards whiteness in other, less specific areas?

    Like, we know these models are dumb as rocks. We know that they are imperfect and that they mirror the biases of their trainers and training data, and that in American society that means bias towards whiteness. If the trainers are doing what they can to prevent that from happening, whatever, that’s cool… even if the result is some dumb stuff like this sometimes.

    I also don’t think it’s a problem for the user to specify race if it matters? Like “a white queen of England” is a fine thing to ask for, and if it isn’t specified, the model will include diverse options even if they aren’t historically accurate. No one gets bent out of shape if the outfits aren’t quite historically accurate, for example



  • Girl, this community is full of trans folks, and not all of us are trans women. I’d wager the majority of people annoyed with this post are not cis, and it seems like some of them are trans women, too

    It’s not even something I would post in a community just for trans women, like what about trans women that don’t end up with these characteristics? Are people only trans women if they identify with these changes? Why is the assumption that men (and I guess pre-transition trans women) have anger issues and porn addictions? Why are those qualities tied to their hormones and physical bodies, so trans women who can’t or won’t medically transition are excluded from benefitting?