Posts by ben@mastodon.adida.net
(DIR) Post #ARAGuuY46CZhFu3fZQ by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2022-12-31T11:46:08Z
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@torresjrjr @captainepoch @J12t Sounds like you don't like the idea. That said, your reasoning isn't really a reasoning, it's some vague opposition to anything that isn't small, artisanal non profit, spec-pure implementation of the fediverse.That's naive. The gravitational force of a growing fediverse will cause all of the things you mention. A large player like Mozilla that understands the open web is a very good way to prevent the worst of natural tendencies and network effects.
(DIR) Post #ARALZTw6LbJwPNtzQe by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2022-12-31T12:38:17Z
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@torresjrjr @J12t I think you misunderstand how networked applications grow and evolve through inherent incentives and network effects, not because of any single choice one (even large) organization makes.I strongly recommend reading the Master Switch, by Tim Wu.If the Fediverse keeps growing, there will be significant centralization, significant commercialization, etc. All to serve very good reasons for millions of users. Google and others won't need excuses to get in the game.
(DIR) Post #ARASQAseWeyuNhnXDE by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2022-12-31T13:55:02Z
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@torresjrjr @J12tHope is good, i could well be wrong.I would just argue that sprinkling in some realism about how things evolve is the best way to ensure the core values you care about are kept. It won't be through best behavior by all, it will be through ruthless fighting for those values, finding the right allies, even if imperfect.
(DIR) Post #ARAbWPC17oAC5xtx7A by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2022-12-30T22:43:20Z
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There's obviously going to be some amazing Fediverse search engine, right? Full-text search, graph analysis, information spreading analysis, etc. Right? We're not actually expecting everyone to neatly hashtag their posts like we're all dedicated librarians?(Not knocking librarians, they rock... they're just rare.)
(DIR) Post #ARFWqxlwjzL79XURge by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-01-02T23:14:30Z
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The state of account verification in the Fediverse / Mastodon is(1) an incredibly powerful decentralized architecture, and(2) total chaos in practice for very popular accounts migrating from Twitter.Not sure what the right solution is, but I suspect it involves some default set of trusted verifier services, or maybe some social verification service... but the verification architecture on its own is not enough.
(DIR) Post #ASEJb4sPdoGAlVPZNQ by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-01T03:13:48Z
1 likes, 3 repeats
So OpenAI just released a detector of AI-generated text, I assume because of concerns in education / homework.https://openai.com/blog/new-ai-classifier-for-indicating-ai-written-text/Maybe this is good?No, it's very bad.They claim 26% true positives, 9% false positives. Assume 10% of submitted homework is chatgpt generated, you get the classic counterintuitive outcome of poor predictive power: if a homework is flagged, there's a 3:1 chance it's *human* generated.This is going to cause a lot of harm. It should be immediately recalled.
(DIR) Post #ASZkKHIA8OvoZRZjCi by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-11T16:33:32Z
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@seldo thank you for writing this. Right on.
(DIR) Post #AT4tQMwIyMWbJM5YYa by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T16:40:59Z
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Bummed to see some folks outright rejecting and even blocking investment-backed players of the Fediverse. The Fediverse can't just be the artisanal cheese shop of the Internet if it means to serve all humans. Gotta try various things. Plenty of opportunity to block and route around later based on actual bad behavior right? That's the point of federation, i think?
(DIR) Post #AT5QNwJWI9bydqOdkW by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:31:37Z
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@timbray i hear you, but IMO, that feels like an overrotation. I don't think operating the fediverse is going to remain all that cheap if it means to serve a significant percentage of the population. We haven't even hit a real security or abuse problem at scale yet.I'd love to see a healthy ecosystem of different types of instances.Plus, if the fediverse is to be resilient, surely it needs to tolerate a few vc-backed runs at it, no? Federation is supposed to provide guardrails, right?
(DIR) Post #AT5QNyEz7zAkcMI2xU by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:37:30Z
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@luis_in_brief @chucker @timbray exactly, Luis, that is what I meant.
(DIR) Post #AT5QNzNWthbM99INuq by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:46:43Z
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@luis_in_brief @chucker @timbray ugh, mistakenly deleted my response. Trying again:Yeah, I'm not sure how we got to confusing VC and "any investment." As you point out, if even a Mozilla investment is evil, we're in a weird place.
(DIR) Post #AT6U3oeNfXEg3Zm1wW by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T11:38:46Z
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@publius i think it is worthwhile, but I understand that some do not. Ultimately I think that's what it come down to, and what I meant with my analogy of the artisanal cheese shop. I think many on Mastodon explicitly don't want to serve a large part of the population, even in a federated model.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0aKEs6RCZp4EVM by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T03:58:32Z
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@rysiek I'm explicitly saying there could be something between the artisanal cheese shop and the fully VC backed world, and that federation is exactly the path to try. It sounds like what you want is only the artisanal cheese shop. IMO, even a federation of them won't serve most users.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0bQeljAK014s9A by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T11:42:50Z
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@rysiek i think it's more subtle than that. Even Facebook, which i strongly dislike, did a lot of good, especially in its early days, for everyday people. And more importantly Twitter, as flawed as it was, did a ton for its users. Yes, the demands for profits often get in the way. But it's not as simple as either you serve the user or you don't.Either way, I'm not talking about having only investment-backed players. I'm talking about, in a federation, welcoming all players, including them.
(DIR) Post #AT71WNPRKHouSJ0mVE by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T17:11:44Z
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@publius I'm confused. Are you saying that the fediverse as a whole can or cannot serve most users?
(DIR) Post #ATM8hS0CsisTA95nO4 by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-03-06T21:10:23Z
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Newspapers hosting their own Mastodon instances is the wrong model.This here by WaPo, newspapers verifying their journalists wherever they toot, is the right model.https://washpost.engineering/heres-how-the-washington-post-verified-its-journalists-on-mastodon-7b5dbc96985c
(DIR) Post #ATNDLHLcVaWIfyJbzU by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-03-07T04:24:39Z
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@evan i don't agree. One thing that was positive about Twitter is journalists having independent voices and a lasting timeline as they move from job to job. Being tied to your employer is not ideal, IMO.
(DIR) Post #ATPBOoHMiQp05TnjLE by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-03-07T19:27:01Z
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This is such a shame. Gigi Sohn would have been amazing. A victory for lobbyists indeed, a huge loss for Americans.https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/07/gigi-sohn-withdraws-fcc-nomination/
(DIR) Post #AU1AU4mhpI5c0oNTPM by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-03-26T15:09:33Z
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I'm still processing the shockingly fast developments in AI.My first reaction is: regardless of how intelligent this really is, it's going to have massive impact.My second reaction is: I'm a lot less worried about some superintelligent AI than I am about a dumb, buggy, hallucinating AI causing havoc by making lots of stupid mistakes faster than we can possibly defend against.Computers make mistakes really fast.
(DIR) Post #AVb3NGXk4g1C6MOhOa by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-05-13T01:16:29Z
1 likes, 2 repeats
I want to give a shout out to exposure notifications, the API Apple and Google created at the beginning of the pandemic. Well scoped. In close collaboration with domain experts. Privacy protecting. Measurably helped, maybe not as much as hoped, but still. And now being responsibly shut down, as promised.We should praise folks when tech is done right. I want to see more of this responsible deployment of tech.