Posts by williampietri@sfba.social
(DIR) Post #Alde5eIZTkyTRHyOhc by williampietri@sfba.social
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If you see somebody described as "he's just like that" or "he can't help himself", ask if he's like that when he might be held accountable. E.g., in front of his boss, his mom, at church, when a video camera is recording.Occasionally, he really can't help himself. But it usually turns out that he can, and that there's a pattern to when he can't. E.g., he's a jerk to juniors and peer women, but perfectly controlled in front of his male boss. That's when you know it's not illness, it's abuse.
(DIR) Post #AnaFgIEaxET82qFjcG by williampietri@sfba.social
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@RussSharek Ah, Impro! Such an eye opener
(DIR) Post #AnaFgUrfzkrPDWd7CK by williampietri@sfba.social
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Women only, a quick question: How bad is the reply guy problem on Mastodon? (Please boost for a good sample.)
(DIR) Post #AnaFgVF4alZkO5ZnfM by williampietri@sfba.social
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And for those unfamiliar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_guy
(DIR) Post #AnaFgVh4udydmwgAJk by williampietri@sfba.social
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Somebody asked me privately if trans women were welcome to reply. My answer: Yes, all women! And really, anybody who people perceive as a women enough to cause reply-guy behavior, as what I'm interested in here is the level of impact. So yes, please vote!
(DIR) Post #AnaFgW7fJnFD7P7Ol6 by williampietri@sfba.social
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Ok, poll closed! From the number of people asking me about results, I guess some clients don't always offer the option to see them. Here's a screenshot of the results just in case.
(DIR) Post #AnaFgWYFiwVmRrYdCS by williampietri@sfba.social
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There were a lot of interesting replies giving further detail. I'd sum it up by saying that women say they are more likely to experience reply guys when* posts are boosted widely* they're more visibly female* they're talking about tech* responses come from certain servers, including fosstodon and mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AnaFgY71v7vNI0pv2u by williampietri@sfba.social
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A number of women mentioned discomfort seeing reply guys on other women's posts. When I worked on abuse previously, this sort of bystander harm had a significant chilling effect on the willingness of people to post when they identified with the people targeted.To me, this is a pretty clear example of what Kate Manne describes in Down Girl: "misogyny enforces patriarchy by punishing women who deviate from patriarchy".
(DIR) Post #AnaFgZXIcwX1hm8PdA by williampietri@sfba.social
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The post also attracted quite a lot of reply guys who were stridently defending their god-given right to spew opinions in response to any question mark anywhere in the world. Without regard to what the person posting might want, and with an ardent refusal that any negative impact should be brought to their attention, let alone carefully considered. This too is consistent with Manne's "Down Girl", which I recommend to anybody interested in these dynamics: http://www.katemanne.net/down-girl.html
(DIR) Post #Ap2sbuj1nm5oPfmecy by williampietri@sfba.social
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To me this is an important clue in the rise of fascism, and it's part of my "hot stove" theory of humanity. The basic version is that people mostly learn not to do dumb things by having bad experiences. So: "fire pretty" -> burnt fingers -> "fire bad!"Here we have people around old enough to remember polio, so even lickspittles like McConnell find enough backbone to object to making iron lungs great again. But once all the people who experienced the Great Depression were dead, financial regulation started softening. And now that anybody who fought in WW II is dead, many people are all "strongman pretty".
(DIR) Post #Ap2sc16e4sY8CesbGy by williampietri@sfba.social
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We've launched! After months of work, MLCommons has released our v1.0 benchmark that measures LLM (aka "AI") propensity for giving hazardous responses. Here's the results for 15 common models: https://ailuminate.mlcommons.org/benchmarks/And here's the overview: https://mlcommons.org/ailuminate/I was the tech lead for the software and want to give a shout out to my excellent team of developers and the many experts we worked closely with to make this happen.
(DIR) Post #Ap2sc2r7ZZJtd5dELw by williampietri@sfba.social
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Ooh, and we got written up in Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/benchmark-for-ai-risks
(DIR) Post #AwYtTdelwWuH4QpiAS by williampietri@sfba.social
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@davidrevoy Perhaps you could pull back to show that the setting is in a mall or casino? Something akin to this. Maybe turn up the commercialism with signs like "next mermaid show 3:30 pm", a merch table, and "picture with the mermaid, $25".