@jhavok It hasn’t dominated so far, because it’s been terrible relative to humans. People prefer to pay for a human narrator.

LLMs simulate understanding of text, sometimes pretty persuasively. They may or may not be able to peform the kind of verbal inflections we expect from comprehension then interpretation. If they can’t, I think people will stick with human readers and prerecorded audiobooks. If they can, I think we’ll just skip the audiobooks and have them read to us.

@jhavok if automated tools narrate well enough they could record audiobooks listeners would like, then they’ll quickly become good enough to generate them on demand. i can see a human narrators remain equilibrium or an automated narration on demand one, but not one where people buy recordings of automated narrations, except during a transitional period.

i don’t think the endgame is AI-recorded audiobooks.

it’s no audiobooks at all, but automated systems capable of serviceably performing a text for us on demand.

@paninid (of course!)

hatred is so much easier than pain.

“the extremist must find a way to change the politics of the situation from a 0-100 sliding scale into a binary choice between 0 and 1. In other words: Where thoughtful men once queried ‘what is your preferred policy outcome given the means at our disposal?’ they now must demand ‘whose side are you on?’” #TannerGreer https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2023/10/the-extremists-gambit-helps-explain-why-hamas-attacked-now/

to promote peace need not imply a demand that any side capitulate.

there are other means of contesting outcomes than armed conflict.

peace requires only mutual acceptance of alternative forums under which the conflict might continue, under less negative-sum terms. it need not imply acceptance of a final outcome.

@Alon @JoshuaHolland @ChristoFBG I really hope it works out. It’d be great if Netanyahu were out and PA could serve as a unified authority and a process towards a more permanent settlement might resume. Again, though I understand why the current strategy might have felt necessary and justified, what was felt was not well thought. I think if PA as partner is the outcome you are after, the character of Israel’s response renders that harder than alternative approaches might have. I’ll still hope.

@Alon @JoshuaHolland @ChristoFBG there's no excuse for anyone to celebrate the Oct 7 massacres.

but the blood of 8000 and counting mostly innocents (beyond perhaps no-excuse sympathies) is a high price to pay for deterrence by punishment, and that deterrence may be countered by the resurgent hatred it has engendered among Palestinians and the risk to Israel of a larger war.

i think even on terms that consider only the long-term interests of Israel, the choices made thus far have been unwise.

so are we going to see Elon Musk lobbying for a generous child allowance, or at least an expanded, fully refundable CTC?

"leap from the moral high ground into a pool of blood"

so well put. by @JoshuaHolland https://zirk.us/@JoshuaHolland@mastodon.social/111331969152197925 ht @ChristoFBG

my fave halloween costume.

you have to remember i'm a lazy fuck.

in my 20s i was invited to some crazy loft halloween party, and had nothing to wear. so i found some cheap purple face paint and just splotched it on my face.

then

"well, what are you supposed to be?"

"what do you *think* i am?"

"umm..."

"what do you see?"

"uh"

"i'm a Rorschach test!"

it was supposed to be some nanotech science fiction hypthetical, but i look at gaza and i see gray goo.

the subject of the e-mail was “band books”, and it was not in error. it was from a music teacher at the kid’s school.

no leviathan would permit this.

@admitsWrongIfProven just never let a live oak play with matches, okay?

wars are like wildfires except the trees are humans.

i get invited to these events where they promise i can meet new people but i almost never find many infants when i go.