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Comment More gibberish from Mozilla (Score 1) 47

Always with the vague, nonsensical language. What does "focused on AI safety, transparency and governance" even mean? With Proton (Lumo), DDG and Brave they are very clear. Privacy this, no saving of chats, etc... in plain language we can understand. We can question that. We can't even begin to decipher the gibberish this company virtue signals daily. The only thing they stand for is what people imagine and project they stand for.

Comment Weaponized AI (Score 1) 7

AI has already been weaponized worldwide, led by US/israeli efforts. Flimsy internal laws will have minimal effects. I foresee a point where countries will physically cut off international internet access because of this weaponization. We have already seen what uncheck power is doing around the world. AI just makes it so much easier for some (of the same) countries to terrorize others.

Comment The time for questions are over. (Score 1) 53

"... but who directs it and for what purposes?" As he's already aware, those decision have long ago been made. We'll keep asking these questions for the next few years until it truly is too late. That's the game plan. It keeps everyone from mobilizing until the only thing that remains is the illusion of choice.

Submission + - OpenAI Reveals AI Tool To Recreate Human Voices (axios.com)

An anonymous reader writes: OpenAI said on Friday it's allowed a small number of businesses to test a new tool that can recreate a person's voice from just a 15-second recording. The company said it is taking "a cautious and informed approach" to releasing the program, called Voice Engine, more broadly given the high risk of abuse presented by synthetic voice generators.

Based on the 15-second recording, the program can create a "emotive and realistic" natural-sounding voice that closely resembles the original speaker. This synthetic voice can then be used to read text inputs, even if the text isn't in the original speaker's native language. In one example offered by the company, an English speaker's voice was translated into Spanish, Mandarin, German, French and Japanese while preserving the speaker's native accent.

OpenAI said Voice Engine has so far been used to provide reading assistance to non-readers, translate content and to help people who are non-verbal. It said the program has already been used in its text-to-speech application and its ChatGPT Voice and Read Aloud tool.

Submission + - Voat's Founder Begs Users to Stop Making Death Threats, Contacted By 'US Agency' (vice.com)

scullyitsaliens writes: The Reddit clone Voat has reportedly been contacted by a “US agency” about threats being made on the censorship-free website, according to its founder Justin Chastain.

In a post on Wednesday, Chastain (who goes by PuttItOut on Voat) told users they need to “chill on the ‘threats,’” as the platform had been officially approached by an unnamed agency over some of its content. Chastain said he didn’t want to litigate free speech, but that Voat would cooperate with law enforcement and remove “gray area” posts if asked.

Comment Hypocrite (Score 1) 117

In the meantime, he's handed the decryption keys to all cloud data on every iDevice user in China. (source: common knowledge)

> "At the end of the day we'll be judged more on 'did we stand up for what we believed in,' not necessarily, 'do they agree with it.'"

Consider yourself judged.

Comment Re:To every rule, an exception (Score 1) 194

With conspiracy hat on: maybe they were going after bigger fishes while working with the government or local law enforcement. So instead of targeting a possible suspect directly, they employed a kind of 6 degrees of separation.

The primary suspect (or suspicious person or one with a low "social credit": remember, even Apple reads emails now to determine a Trust Score[0]) would normally be more guarded.

> why take peoples' email passwords?

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/...

Comment Re:They are depresesed by the success of MX Linux (Score 2) 269

Had no idea that MX Linux had become so well-known (or increasingly so). Thanks for pointing this out! I'm an ex-Mint user (still love what they've done with the distro and Cinnamon) not because there was anything wrong with it but because of performance issues on my admittedly lower-end (aged) laptop. Went through tons of Live CDs. anti-X drew me in (love lightweight OSes) and it was followed by MX Linux.

Been on it for about 6 months. I was just looking for a distro that would breathe new life into my laptop. I happened to get one that is a rolling release (so rare in the Linux world), running on top of debian (access to a rich assortment of programs). Did not really consider other aspects like systemd - was just looking for a performance boost.

Performance has been amazing (at the end of the day... this is the key). Firefox Quantum runs like a champ on a 10+ year old laptop where the chromes fail miserably. Added the FF extension named "h264ify" (plus the usual anti-trackers) and now Youtube Videos don't cause the laptop into meltdown.

At some point I'm going to have to replace my old non-kiosk laptop (with such a great keyboard, tons of ports, massive hard drive, 16:10 aspect ratio, replaceable components) but not today - all because of MX Linux. I think lots of Linux users are in a similar position as me (running older - tried and true - laptops).

Comment Stallman IS right... again. (Score 1) 191

The devil represents the compromises we're often forced to make. Having a BigTech's binary closed source driver (often working in the background) playing any role in an Open Source system is ludicrous when you think about it. Having a horned devil representing this compromise is brilliant! It's also an honest approach to the current state of things.

Comment Product or Target? (Score 1) 85

He was smart enough not to set up an account in Nigeria. That would have been a giveaway.

Seriously though, Google and Facebook can tell you what you had for breakfast three years ago, on any Wednesday: but they are clueless as to whom they do business with. Probably because it would involve "tracking" their own transactions in the same way...

We aren't just the product, we're the targets.

Comment Re:Not just laptops (Score 3, Interesting) 96

It's the same reason Windows Notepad is my fav "chat" application... when I log into someone else's Windows machine with Teamviewer. It isn't about students being clever (as some posts suggests), it's about finding the easiest solution to a problem. We work with what we have.

> THAT is the biggest reason why I see Google Docs as a chat application.

Comment Fraud (Score 1) 67

When will Google rain down hell and fury at this nonsense? When will our own government take action against this reckless and fraudulent activity? In the age where there is no accountability in tech or simply no accountability anywhere... this is just another example of the shitshow we're all living through.

Comment Reactions to a grain of sand on a beach (Score 1) 278

Facebook is a big place. Estimates indicate 2.32 billion active users. That's 2,320,000,000 active users. One group may have 150,000 members, which translates to 150,000/2,320,000,000 - about 0.0065 percent. That's 0.000065 of the total number of active users.

In a city of 1,000,000 do we panic about what a small group of 65 people are doing? Does the opinion of the other 999,935 people in that city not matter? Or do we play with statistics to, once again, control the flow of all information - removing all input and discussion (from the other 999,935 too)?

How about in a smaller town of about 15,500 people - do we start censoring over what a single person does (this too is 0.000065 of 15.5k people)?

"one anti-vaccination group on Facebook has over 150,000 members."

Might as well censor the flat-earthers, astrology and phrenology. We will all miss a good laugh in the process

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