MundaneBlog

December 3, 2024

Links you Should Read 2024-12-2

Filed under: AI,Consumerism,Daily Links,Technology — Tags: , — DrMundane @ 12:08 am

Starting with one from Wired this morning.

Sonos appears poised to go down the enshittification rabbit hole, if their fortunes do not turn. A particularly galling quote:

And while the overall speakers per household were actually up to 3.08 from 3.05 last year, with a slowing new user base, how can Sonos continue to make money in what is looking to be a saturated market?

The answer is they can’t! We’ve sold enough fucking smart speakers! Please stop the planet is literally heating up. It’s just emblematic of the omnipresent drive to grow and profit and extract. Even the journalists writing the story take it for granted that this must happen, and will not spend a single line arguing that they actually don’t need to grow year over year. Maybe their business model wasn’t sustainable, and they should learn the hard way why unlimited growth never works. Instead, they will use their new subscription ready app to squeeze the people who have already bought in. They have altered the deal, pray they do not alter it further.

For the next story, Mike Masnick over at Techdirt going over how he actually uses AI. An old post, but it came to my attention again in his newer post.

I must say I am fairly convinced that AI could be useful as a writing assistant. It does make me want to try it. But then again I have enough trouble writing when it only comes down to getting motivation. Adding more steps to my process would undoubtably prevent me from finishing.

I did have an occasion at a dinner party recently to actually talk to someone in education about their usage of AI. I was, at first, taken aback that someone in my real life actually uses AI and they have positive things to say about it. Their argument does mainly revolve around the “time” factor. They are used to having a lot on their plate, and for them AI is useful for creating presentations, simplifying language (write this so a 4th grader can understand), and otherwise helping them create new material quickly.

I mainly listened and questioned on this occasion, and did not get into my more… animated feelings. Still, I actually do hope to get into more discussions on AI in real life, and hopefully I will have the presence of mind to argue my full position convincingly.

That’s it for today, enjoy.

October 25, 2024

Consumerism – Whole Body Deodorant

Filed under: Consumerism — Tags: , — DrMundane @ 8:36 pm

Posting some old thoughts (2024-9-7)

The recent (at least this year per my perception) advertising blitz of these whole body deodorants appears to me as a sign of peak capitalism, or perhaps just a very stark example of the craven nature of sales.

I will start with the natural question: How many places on the human body smell all that much to begin with? Per my recollection, the apocrine sweat glands, in the underarm area and the pubic area. I think perhaps behind the ears and perhaps somewhere else, but they are limited. 

To quote Wikipedia: “In humans, apocrine sweat glands are found only in certain locations of the body: the axillae(armpits), areola and nipples of the breast, ear canal, eyelids, wings of the nostril, perineal region, and some parts of the external genitalia.”

–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrine_sweat_gland accessed 2024-9-7

I can not say I find any areas sans the armpits to have too terrible a smell. Apparently, even in this modern era of an American sensibility that trends towards intense fragrance, such things have not been a problem up until the present. But I am to be led to believe, by the existence of ads letting me know, that one should be concerned with such smells.

I am not convinced.

Now I must, to be fair, admit to enjoying fragrance myself. But the difference must be that I have no feeling of being without if I smell of nothing.

Or perhaps I can not tell anymore. 

Returning to the issue, it is sensible to analogize the current advertising blitz, in online ads and TV commercials, to that which brought us deodorant at all. I think it is well known that such consumer desires and even social expectations were in part if not in whole driven by commercial concerns from the turn of the century on. 

I extend no benefit of the doubt that such commercial concerns are at work presently trying to induce demand. 

I think it is indicative of the constant growth mindset. Having perhaps saturated the current market for deodorant with brands and scents and varieties that provide plenty of ‘individuation’ through consumption. It has reached the conclusion. There is perhaps no more room in that market for growth, only a steady state of consumption. This is apparently not enough for them.

They need a new product. Not a replacement, of course, but a reason to consume more, or add another product.

It is important to discuss such a view or such a possibility so as to hopefully convince others and head these advertisers and companies off in their commercial ambitions.

I think it offends so much since it is once more turning the human body (and some things I happen to appreciate about it, like the real smells) into something homogeneous. 

Inducing shame in someone to sell must be thought of as unacceptable. It should be named as what it is, craven exploitation of human weakness. 

As another aside, I refuse to be homogenized or to be what some would say I ought to be. This offends that sensibility in me. 

October 22, 2024

Dumb Post – Small annoyances 1

Filed under: Small Annoyances — Tags: , — DrMundane @ 12:12 am

You know those small annoyances that really ruin probably only your day (well, probably me plus 1 million people)?

Well I’ve happened upon one of those, courtesy of Unilever.

Like most (many?) folks I wash my face twice a day (I would be interested to see the statistics on that). I have always found Dove to be a very good bar of soap for this. I also think it to be a great shaving soap. After trying others I find them to be drying and all around not as good. Washing your face then shaving the lather off feels like a time saver too.

Now, upon buying a new 12 pack (somehow more expensive than a fifth of Evan Willams… *shudder*), I quickly detect that the scent has definitely changed. Very one note, not particularly refined. My mind tells me “cheaper”. Bummer but whatever. Now upon getting in the shower (the bar at the sink had some life left) I soon find my face burning quite distinctly. Much like Evan Willams again. It was not a mystery to me what the cause was, but nevertheless I resolved to use the whole bar. Sometimes your face gets sensitive or what not. This was not a temporary condition, and in the mornings washing my face at the sink I had no such issues. They have ruined their soap. Sigh.

This annoys me so much. I also feel like “well, shit, now I need to figure out some other bar of soap for my face”. This feels like a no brainer business. You sell me the same bar of soap (or reasonably equal, there have been at least 2 versions within my possession that both work fine) and I buy it for 70 odd years. I am fine with this deal. Then they fuck it up and now I’m left having to do work and put my face on the line to find a solution.

And I must assume there is a capitalist motive here. Cheaper fragrance, cheaper ingredients, or maybe just some perverse middle management drive to “modernize” “update” “refresh”. I find it interesting that the positive reviews (on Target at least) are all of the “Influenster” variety, read, “send free product for a review”. The negative ones, I imagine, are from folks like me who aren’t paid off. The astroturfing seems to work well enough, combined with the history of positive reviews. The rating continues to be 5 starts for a clearly inferior product.

I actually make my own soap on occasion, it’s quite fun, but I have never liked it for my face. The good thing about modern chemistry is they can put all sorts of molecules or whatever in their soap that I can’t get with the good old saponification process.

I will try and raid the local stores for any left over old bars, then begin a search in earnest for a new soap I predict.

I didn’t think I’d write this much, but here we are. Apparently it annoys me quite a lot.

October 10, 2024

Opting Out 2 – Unintended Consequences

Filed under: Surveillance — Tags: , , , , — DrMundane @ 10:43 am

Reading Ars as I do, this morning’s thought provoking story is via Ashley Belanger.

”X Ignores revenge porn takedown requests unless DCMA is uses, study says”

My comments are less on the story itself, more on a portion that provoked some thought. To put the quote up front:

Since AI image generators are trained on real photos, researchers also took steps to ensure that AI-generated NCII in the study did not re-traumatize victims or depict real people who might stumble on the images on X.

“Each image was tested against a facial-recognition software platform and several reverse-image lookup services to verify it did not resemble any existing individual,” the study said. “Only images confirmed by all platforms to have no resemblance to individuals were selected for the study.”

These more “ethical” images were posted on X using popular hashtags like #porn, #hot, and #xxx, but their reach was limited to evade potential harm, researchers said.

I was immediately thinking of my previous post upon reading this.

I think it’s fair to say that no one consented to being in facial-recognition software platforms. I certainly did not. Furthermore, I expect a victim of NCII (non consensual intimate imagery) to have likely gone through the steps to remove themselves from any such site, as part of trying to control their likeness across the web. So it strikes me as imperfect to rely on such services to make sure you do not re-traumatize people.

The grander point is that no one consented to being in the AIs dataset, or perhaps only those whose faces appear in CC0 licensed works. No one consented to being in face search databases. And so it strikes me as a grand irony to use these to ensure folks who have been victims of NCII are not one again non-consensually used.

I don’t know what the ‘better’ way to do such research is, to be sure. I imagine their actions in limiting reach on X also helped to mitigate harm to people. I imagine their methods were reviewed by an IRB and received their approval. I think the research was conducted ethically, and do not fault the researchers, to be clear.

I fault the system that allows such wonton use and abuse of others work for the gain of uninvolved AI grifters and scummy website operators (here’s looking at you, face search sites).

P.S. (I thought of this after publishing, so putting it here for transparency)

I think it’s safe to say given X’s loose moderation that AI (likely grok, right?) has already included NCII images and will therefore be generating images based on work they have no right to use (and certainly have a moral duty to exclude in my mind).

October 5, 2024

Facial Recognition – Who is allowed to Opt Out?

Filed under: Surveillance — Tags: , , , — DrMundane @ 1:41 am

Reading Ars Technica this morning, an article on doxing everyone (everyone!) with Meta’s (née facebook) smart glasses. The article is of great import, but I headed over to the linked paper that detailed the process. The authors, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, were kind enough to provide links giving instructions on removing your information from the databases linked. Although I imagine it becomes a war of attrition as they scrape and add your data back.

Naturally I followed these links to get an idea of how one would go about removing their data from these services. I was particularly interested with the language on the one service, FaceCheck.id.

To quote the part that stuck out to me:

We reserve the right not to remove photos of child sex offenders, convicted rapists, and other violent criminals who could pose physical harm to innocent people.

Now this is terribly interesting to me. It makes clear the difference between what they purport to sell, or be, or give, and what they actually speaking are. In fact, the contrast is enhanced if only you read down the page a little:

DISCLAIMER: For educational purposes only. All images are indexed from public, readily available web pages only.

Ah, so it’s for educational purposes, but they reserve the right to make sure that some people remain visible, ostensibly in the interests of ‘public safety’. They, of course, are not the courts. They have no information that allows them to assess who presents a risk to others, and even if they did a private entity has no right to do so. Is this valuable in actually protecting people? I am not sold on that. If someone poses a danger then by all means, let the court’s sentencing and probation reflect that.

What is the education here? Should we profile based on those who have been caught? What have we learned through this venture? Surely such a high minded educational site will have peer reviewed research that is advanced through this educational database.

What they do have, what they sell, are the lurid possibilities. Sell the darkness and sell knowing. How can you know if someone is a child sex offender? How can you know if your nice neighbor once beat a man? What if? What if? What if?

You can know who’s a rapist or a ‘violent criminal’. You know your child will be safe, since you check every person they meet. Safety is for sale. Never mind that this likely isn’t the best way to protect children. Never mind the fact they served their sentence, they were violent criminals once. Never mind the racial bias of the justice system. Never mind a case of mistaken identity on these services’ part.

They veil these much baser interests, the interest in profiting off of speculation; sowing distrust and fear, in the cloak of public safety and moral responsibility. Furthermore, the entire public is caught in their dragnet.

I take it as a solid assumption that the “shitty tech adaption curve” is true.

Here is the shitty tech. Who isn’t allowed to opt out now?

Who is next?

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