Jenn Wilson

I remember discussing the digital divide as a topic with my supervisors early in my phd, asking about why it wasn’t being discussed as much any longer. Then lo and behold, genAI improves and all of a sudden the digital divide concept seems useful everywhere.

I think the word “refusing” is key here. Commenters are raising material access issues (having the tech) but I think this leans into an earlier tier: motivational access (willingness to learn/use). The digital divide as I know it has four tiers: bsky.app/profile/that...

I know people are worried about AI, but I spent my whole childhood reading about amazing worlds and tech that I want us to have. - video games with complete sense immersion - terraforming - space elevator - Dyson swarm There’s still so much for us to learn how to do. And we’ll dream of more.

I think part of our role is to help The Kids understand the trade-offs they’re making with tech, so they can make choices that are in their interests. The kid who uses AI to do homework gets a grade and loses an opportunity to learn. The question is *why*, because that’s a terrible trade.

I know people are worried about AI, but I spent my whole childhood reading about amazing worlds and tech that I want us to have. - video games with complete sense immersion - terraforming - space elevator - Dyson swarm There’s still so much for us to learn how to do. And we’ll dream of more.

This is going to be in my head for weeks. For those interested, this is how anabology produced it, which is fascinating to read: claudia.gallery/whitepill/

* directed it. Estimated at 82 hours of work from 18-22 October. The pages include a discussion of the build process and tools used including the prompts to midjourney, h3, wan, kling, seedance, and suno. I really like how much detail is offered in how this was done and what was used to make it.

My website uses wordpress, which has today's php problem. So I took it offline and built a basic maintenance.html page to explain what was happening instead. But that was boring, so I added some style: headings. Then a background colour. Bullet points. A breakout box. A scrolling section...

New art idea: a gallery exhibition of AI works that you can only access via an embodied model that operates in the centre of the exhibition, that describes the works to you as you sit outside. The gallery space itself is only for AIs. 🎨🤖

Advertisement in Dolly magazine, September 1993. Note you could apply to do a course in "modelling, charm, personality". I'm so curious as to the course structure and contents.

I think about this when my friends tell me about students turning in essays at uni that reek of models. The marker gets paid regardless. The person who loses is the one who is paying for an education they’re not getting. I have to assume the kids just aren’t aware of what is being traded.

But if you didn’t write it, I’m still going to give the feedback. And get paid. You just don’t get to grow, because the feedback is not going to help you. So you stay stagnant despite the opportunity to grow, and you pay money, and get nowhere. It’s not a good deal.

I think about this when my friends tell me about students turning in essays at uni that reek of models. The marker gets paid regardless. The person who loses is the one who is paying for an education they’re not getting. I have to assume the kids just aren’t aware of what is being traded.

This is a good point. Often people talk about language models as if only frontier models exist because that's what they hear and talk about. If you don't want to financially support the frontier labs, you can choose to use open models instead. Let's talk about the digital divide though.

I'm a huge fan of open models, and I use them in my work. I'm not going to pretend that they are equivalent to the frontier models. You have to do more to get similar value. For instance: I always build a database on the front and I'm playing around with verifiers for the back. You can too!

This is a good point. Often people talk about language models as if only frontier models exist because that's what they hear and talk about. If you don't want to financially support the frontier labs, you can choose to use open models instead. Let's talk about the digital divide though.

Lastly there is usage access: you gotta have the time to dedicate to learning to use the technology and applying it. This access issue will impact the others, as learning basic programming and what your computer can do requires time and practice.

This is a good point. Often people talk about language models as if only frontier models exist because that's what they hear and talk about. If you don't want to financially support the frontier labs, you can choose to use open models instead. Let's talk about the digital divide though.

Skill access will impact you: if you can't program yet, if you're nervous about using the terminal, if you haven't built a database before, then your options will be a bit more limited. Good news: these are learnable skills, and python has a lot of good learning resources on the web.

This is a good point. Often people talk about language models as if only frontier models exist because that's what they hear and talk about. If you don't want to financially support the frontier labs, you can choose to use open models instead. Let's talk about the digital divide though.

Motivational access is your interest in the technology: your willingness to engage and learn. If you don't want to learn, or don't feel like you can, then that's a barrier all on its own. I feel like this is the spot that a good portion of people are getting stuck.

This is a good point. Often people talk about language models as if only frontier models exist because that's what they hear and talk about. If you don't want to financially support the frontier labs, you can choose to use open models instead. Let's talk about the digital divide though.

Standard reminder: you can fork the repository and learn to code. It is an option. C++ is not easy, but it's doable. Get started today! www.ppsspp.org/docs/develop...