Everything Made By an #AI Is In the #PublicDomain: The US #Copyright Office offers creative #workers a powerful #labor protective:

https://doctorow.medium.com/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain-caa634a8f7f1

#CritiHype #Enshittification #LLCsWithMFAs

Die offenen Briefe der #AI Tech-Bros sind #CritiHype, führt @tante auf der #rp23 ein. „Wir haben das Thema am den Tech-Sektor outgesourced“

@maximum_mew
Once innoculated, the hype stands out like a sore thumb.

I knew what to look for when I first read about Hinton's departure from Google. You could hear my eyes hitting the back of my head I eyerolled so hard when I got to his fearmongering rationale with nary a mention of Gebru or Whitaker's warnings years earlier.

And again when I read the most recent #CritiHype open letter signed by Hinton and others.

@pluralistic @emilymbender @timnitGebru

Who wouldn't want to be the Louis Pasteur of #MutuallyAssuredDestruction?

https://doctorow.medium.com/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee-4ac92fa2eed

#CritiHype

Ayyyyyy Eyeeeee: The lie that raced around the world before the truth got its boots on

https://doctorow.medium.com/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee-4ac92fa2eed

AI #ArtificialIntelligence #PumpAndDump #CritiHype EvilSorcerersVsOrdinaryMediocrities

#5yrsago Colorado Senate Republicans introduce legislation to fire, imprison striking teachers https://www.denver7.com/lifestyle/education/colorado-senate-bill-seeks-to-punish-teachers-with-jail-time-should-they-go-on-strike

#5yrsago The used cars that Europe sends to Nigeria are filled with illegal, toxic e-waste https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:6349/PiP_Report.pdf

#5yrsago The #BBC finally admits that #MI5 secretly vetted its employees, an open secret for generations https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43754737

#1yrago Don't believe Obama's Big Tech #CritiHype https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/22/mesmer-2-point-oh/#thanks-obama

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#CritiHype

> While criti-hype might look like a good strategy because it is based on the PR narratives that corporations have already sold the public it’s quite the opposite. Not only does it empower the people selling “#AI” to keep doing it (because they can always label this form of criticism as hysteric and they got this, really) but it narrows the space of potentials.

https://tante.cc/2023/03/29/pr-as-open-letter/

There's a lot of credulous repetition of these claims, and not just by AI's boosters. AI *critics* are also prone to engaging in what Lee Vinsel calls #CritiHype: criticizing something by repeating its boosters' claims without interrogating them to see if they're true:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

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People who repeat the claims of Prodigal Tech Bros are engaging in #CritiHype, @leevinsel's term for criticism that repeats tech's own mystical narratives of their own superhuman prowess, rather than grappling with the mundanity of doing old conjurer's tricks *very quickly*, with computers:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

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Twiddler: Configurability for Me, But Not For Thee

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

#platformEconomics #enshittiffication #critihype #freedomOfExit #Fediverse #Mastodon #Twitter #configurability #monopoly #BigTech

Out now: "Versprochene Realität" (written with Ortrun https://Bargholz.xyz) in "Bildhafte Räume, begehbare Bilder" (Eds. Kassandra Nakas & Philipp Reinfeld): https://www.fink.de/edcollchap-oa/book/9783846767238/BP000019.xml #OpenAccess

Brief English summary: Departure point for the text is the open call for the exhibition "In VR we trust" (https://trust.invr.info, curated with https://DanielHengst.de/): "Do you trust in VR? [...] But why?". We argue that rather than 'virtual reality' it should be called 'promised reality' (in German this works as a word pun). Most #VR applications are supposed solutions looking for a problem.
So why do producers, institutions and consumers engage with VR at all? We see curious experimentation with the medium itself as a main driver – like a child getting a new gadget for Christmas, engagement with VR often has exploration as its main purpose (rather than being a tool for another goal). Since adults can't say "I want funding and time to play around with this new cool gadget!" they come up with justifications, such as VR supposedly being an "empathy machine" (evidence is weak). Through this – and obviously for marketing reasons – VR is a promise above all.

This perspective matters in multiple ways:
- VR diverges resources from other, maybe more effective, investments: e.g. Axon – known for the totally-not-lethal-lethal Taser – tries to sell VR-based police training.
- these promises shape (business) future: Meta's push for VR can be understood as another attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy (like the failed "pivot to video"), hoping to bind content creators and users to their platform long term
- VR art feeds these promises and justifies this exploration, becoming part of a marketing system

VR art could be understood not as art doing "something with a VR headset" but as art relating to these promises and virtuality in a broad sense. We showcase a work by Dani Ploeger and one of ourselves. We want a more critical engagement with VR, without falling for #CritiHype.

When FB critics repeat these claims, they're engaged in #critihype, Lee Vinsel's useful coinage describing criticism that serves to bolster the target's own propaganda. If FB are evil geniuses, well, at least they're still *geniuses.*

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Some Facebookers doubtless believe their own hype, but that doesn't mean we have to join them in self-delusion.

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