Occupy Wall Street Co-Founder Built an On-Device AI For Activists
- Reference: 0183437346
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/05/28/1817215/occupy-wall-street-co-founder-built-an-on-device-ai-for-activists
- Source link:
> In an era where [1]Silicon Valley's conservatism is both expressed openly and becoming more intense by the day, it's strange to think that tech was once seen as a [2]hive of liberalism . The right-wing nature of today's tech industry means that its products tend to also be seen as serving right-wing interests, either in their actual operation (like X's openly and unrepentantly right-wing chatbot Grok) or by the simple fact that their existence serves to enrich a small group of very powerful, very conservative people.
>
> But does it have to be this way? Can LLMs and AI agents find a place in the toolkit of progressive activist groups? The conviction that they can is the idea behind a new app called [3]Outcry , which provides a chatbot [4]designed specifically as a "private, on-device AI mentor for activists, organizers and movement builders ." (There's also a [5]web version , although it obviously lacks the privacy benefits of being entirely offline.) It's the brainchild of Occupy Wall Street co-creator Micah White, who recently wrote a [6]blog post about the thinking behind the project.
>
> [...] Outcry's other distinguishing feature is that its dataset is entirely offline -- it's included with [7]the download . According to the readme, the entire dataset is downloaded to your device at first launch, and stored in your library's Application Support directory.
So, how effectively does Outcry serve as a guide for collective action? "I'd say that its information is pretty high-level and general, not least because its offline nature prevents it from accessing specific details not contained in its database," writes Gizmodo's Tom Hawking.
He continued: "This app has the potential to be a really valuable resource, especially for people who are just beginning to become involved with activism and genuinely don't know where to begin -- and getting over that first step can be hard."
[1] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/harvard-kennedy-school-of-government/harvard-silicon-technology-conservative
[2] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/J363Nns4n99TBKZMx/the-technology-of-liberalism
[3] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/outcry-activist-ai-mentor/id6762086768
[4] https://gizmodo.com/occupy-wall-street-co-founder-built-an-ai-app-to-help-activists-seize-the-means-of-computation-2000762031
[5] https://www.outcryai.com/
[6] https://micahbornfree.substack.com/p/i-crammed-an-activist-ai-into-an
[7] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/outcry-activist-ai/id6762086768
Tech industry is right wing? (Score:2)
That's a very distorted perception of reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Haha, yeah. But it fits the narrrative, so they ran with it.
Re: (Score:3)
Tech leadership of large firms has been pretty quick to lick the orange anus.
Musk, Cook, Zuckerborg, Altman, Brin, Ellison, Catz, Brockman, Pichai, Nadella, and more that I'm forgetting all have Trump-ass on their breath.
There are a few who seem to prefer democracy, but if you can name a technology company leader of a non-trivial firm that publicly supports the goals of OWS types, please name them - I can't.
Re: (Score:2)
That article on the realignment is calling out events like the [1]inauguration [foxnews.com] or [2]deals with the current administration [foxbusiness.com].
[3]Grok would even be happy to photoshop you into a swastika bikini [dailymail.com] to prove how anti-woke it is. And [4]Palantir can protect us from Greta Thunberg as the Antichrist [politico.eu].
So yeah, undoubtedly big companies will sway with which ever way the power and money comes. But there's one party in power now and even the conservative media is documenting the current sway.
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-inauguration-guest-list-includes-tech-titans-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-elon-musk?msockid=2c38a1ba27d06d631b6bb4c026816c91
[2] https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-answers-questions-new-pentagon-deal
[3] https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15472527/Mother-Elon-Musks-child-sues-company-Grok-deepfakes-swastika-bikini.html
[4] https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-ally-and-tech-billionaire-peter-thiel-brings-antichrist-warning-to-paris-2/
Western liberalism different than political party (Score:3)
> In an era where Silicon Valley's conservatism is both expressed openly and becoming more intense by the day, it's strange to think that tech was once seen as a hive of liberalism.
You seem to be conflating a US political party with "western liberalism" in general. "Western liberalism" is something that both major US political parties support, it is "western liberalism" that tech has always embraced. Not necessarily a particular political party.
MEGATRON: How's it going, fleshling? [...] JFC. (Score:2)
Well, I suppose this does rather solve the difficult problem of saving the world. I'm okay with the world ending if enough people think talking to an LLM will help save it.
Re: (Score:1)
I recall Occupy Wall Street getting bigger and bigger back in the day. Suddenly, it dissipated in a single month without a word. Just as suddenly, DEI terminology showed up and exploded at every university, news organization, media company and HR department soon after. I always had the feeling that Wall Street decided we needed a sudden culture war to distract us. The West became a PvP server.