(biologist - artist - queer)

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You’re the only magician that could make a falling horse turn into thirteen gerbils

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • You didn’t mention it, but have you considered how it would feel if you had a bad day and didn’t live up to this standard?

    You’re framing it like a moral philosophy, but feeling anger is not a morally bad thing. Neither is jealousy, or selfishness, at times. It’s just part of the human experience, and we can avoid it most of the time, but occasionally we’re going to need to focus on ourselves and our needs and our feelings.

    Similarly, it’s impossible to avoid having an ego 100% of the time. Honestly, it sounds like this quality is part of your identity-- would you like yourself less if you lived up to this standard imperfectly?

    I don’t think it’s unusual to want to be a good person and to want to control our worst impulses. But to describe it as “trying to act like a saint”, and saying you’re “deaf to your own needs”-- those are concerning statements.

    I don’t think anyone can speak for you or guess what’s going on from the outside. But if I were you, I’d be exploring if there’s fear underlying these impulses. Fear of judgment: how do you think the world would perceive you if you stopped being so strict about it? Fear of badness: how does it feel when you have a bad day and you fail to be perfect? Do you resent yourself? Fear of impurity: do you feel like other people are bad when they have these natural reactions? Do you fear being like other people who are experiencing and dealing with normal feelings?




  • Oooooh I have some ideas! Some of these are paid/premium (but NOT micro transactions) and some have mild ads. But I share the distaste for data-mining, money grubbing, brain-melting-ad-ridden games, so I’m certain they are on the least intrusive end of the spectrum.

    I really love biology (I’m a biologist…) so these are both pet games and usually breeding/evolution games!

    • Fish Tycoon – This one specifically. A classic! Breed and care for cute fish!
    • Niche breed and evolve – so neat and pretty educational about evolution/genetics. There’s a slightly more complicated/difficult pc game if she decides she likes the nichelings/universe.
    • Pocket Frogs – Simple, low stress collecting game. it would take years to collect all the frogs, and there’s a relatively active community of people who trade sets of frogs to other people to help them complete collections. Would be fun to play with her friends at school!
    • Reigns Her Majesty – a game about running a kingdom as a queen. When you die, you become your heir and retain some progress from your last lives. It doesn’t fit the exact criteria you mentioned, but I think she might like it anyway!









  • That’s valid! I agree. I think in this case it would be reasonable for the model to give multiple (or like, at least one, jeez) images with white queens. I don’t disagree with anyone in that sense. I just also don’t think it’s worth pitching a fit when the dumbass model that has been trained to show more racial diversity produces (frankly comical) hallucinations.

    The ethos of the trainers is a good one. Attempting to counter the (demonstrated, measurable) bias of many models toward whiteness is a good choice. I prefer that the trainers choose to address the bias even if it (sometimes, in early versions) makes the model make silly mistakes like this. That’s all.


  • stoneparchment@possumpat.iotoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldAI or DEI?
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    2 years ago
    • it’s true that this would mislead children, but the model could hallucinate about literally anything. Especially at this stage, no one-- children or adults-- should be uncritically accepting what the model states as fact. That said, I agree LLMs need to improve their factual accuracy

    • Although it is highly debated, some scholars suggest Queen Charlotte might have had African ancestry, or that she would be considered a POC by today’s standards. Of course, she reigned in the 17-1800s, but it isn’t entirely outlandish to have a “Queen of Color”, if we aren’t requesting a specific queen or a specific race

    • People of color did live in England in the middle ages? Like not diverse in the way we conceive now, but here are a few papers discussing the racial diversity at the time. It was surely less intermingled than today, but it’s not like these images are impossible

    • Other things are anachronistic or fantastical about these images, such as clothing. Are we worried about children getting the wrong impression of history in that sense?

    • Of course increasing visibility and representation of all kinds of marginalized people is important. I, myself, am disabled, so I care about that representation too-- thanks for pointing out how we could improve the model further. I do kinda feel like people would be groaning if the model had produced a Queen with a visible disability, though… I would be delighted to be wrong on this front :)


  • stoneparchment@possumpat.iotoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldAI or DEI?
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    2 years ago

    It’s also like, I guess I would prefer it to make mistakes like this if it means it is less biased towards whiteness in other, less specific areas?

    Like, we know these models are dumb as rocks. We know that they are imperfect and that they mirror the biases of their trainers and training data, and that in American society that means bias towards whiteness. If the trainers are doing what they can to prevent that from happening, whatever, that’s cool… even if the result is some dumb stuff like this sometimes.

    I also don’t think it’s a problem for the user to specify race if it matters? Like “a white queen of England” is a fine thing to ask for, and if it isn’t specified, the model will include diverse options even if they aren’t historically accurate. No one gets bent out of shape if the outfits aren’t quite historically accurate, for example



  • What organization are you researching with? Why is the submission via Gmail?

    How are you handling participant data (mostly email addresses, it seems)? Can participants opt out and revoke access to the data after submission?

    Do you have a conflict of interest? Do you or any of your colleagues have an affiliation with Dolby or other companies involved in the research?

    Did this proposal pass IRB? I’m guessing it’s exempt, so probably yes, but do you have the approval number?

    What do you plan on doing with the model? Are these data for training the model or for testing it?

    I know those questions sound a lil aggro, and to be clear, I don’t think there are necessarily right answers. Maybe you’re an undergraduate or hobbiest, like… I don’t think IRB is super important for a cute cat study. But I do think this kind of info should be included in recruitment calls as a standard!

    Cheers, seems cute and fun


  • Pretty much every day, multiple times a day, with strangers, acquaintances, and friends. I think it usually brightens people’s day, and with strangers, I think delivery and content is much more important than what I look like or who I am.

    For content, I only compliment choices, not attributes:

    “Cool shirt!” is good, “Nice legs!” is not

    “I love your haircut!” is good, “Your hair has such a nice texture!” is not

    Tailored compliments are even better, ex. “That book (or other media) is awesome!” is great, if I really do like it, and it can start a conversation, but obviously I don’t lie and pretend I know it when I don’t.

    For delivery, I keep it light and casual. I am mindful to only do it when they aren’t preoccupied, like on the phone or reading something. For tone, I guess I pop the compliment, smile, and movie on. For example, if we’re walking past each other-- I don’t slow down, and I look away immediately after giving a friendly smile. I don’t mean that I don’t care about their response, because of course I’m mindful to be sure I didn’t offend them, but I don’t burden them with needing to respond with gratitude or happiness. I think of it as, I want this person to have the (hopefully pleasant) information that their choice was seen and respected by a stranger. I don’t want anything back from them.

    I would say 95-100% of the people I compliment seem to be genuinely happy I did, and of the ones who don’t react positively, I’d say the vast majority react neutrally. In the rare case where my compliment has totally failed, I usually go “Oh! I’m sorry” and again, disengage.

    Obviously, with friends and acquaintances the options open up a little more, and usually I do follow up/continue the conversation instead of moving on. But it’s similar in the philosophy that I’m usually just trying to give them positive information, and not seeking anything in return. Compliments are not a tool to get people to talk to me or be friends with me. That can and does happen, but it’s not the point. Honestly, I think that’s the part that most people struggle with, if they feel like they don’t get good responses with compliments. It’s not for us.

    I do think I’m probably an outlier, because I give compliments a lot. But I continue to do it because it seems to really make people smile!