> Reaching a human at Amazon is a Kafkaesque experience
Material for their next book!
Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
121–130 of 202 posts
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't people en-masse realising that AI, for all its impressive bling, is a stupid blunt instrument? If you've used it for any amount of time you'll know this. Sure, it's a great time-saver, and if you use it wisely it can remove a lot of tedium. But if you're a developer, one thing you'll know is that it cannot replace developers. You still need to structure your whole project yourself, figure out what the data sch…
It's blunt if youre using it for dumb shit in the same way that a hammer is a blunt instrument if used to break peoples stuff. If you are using it for highly domain specific knowledge its very good, whether that's protien folding, teaching you some arcane programming language macro, etc.
If we have to use an analogy I think a better analogy is that it’s blunt like a dull knife. From a ways back it might look sharp but zoom in and it’s not. The only way any of the current ai appears competent in any domain is if the user themselves it not.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understood the point you made, but I think you're maybe being a little deliberately obtuse (due to your tooth ache perhaps). Have a great day. Edit: I explained my reasoning here: > Why would you need to? .. it relates to the act of washing white paint over something. > There's no logical reason for a negative list to be known as a 'blacklist' as far as I can tell?
Um. You corrected the word "whitelist", not "blacklist". Ok, here's where I think we are. Correct me if I'm wrong. "whitewashing" is ok, because its etymology has nothing to do with race. It's just about painting something over with whitewash. Just an analogy. "whitelist" is bad because... its etymology has nothing to do with race? wait, what? You can see how I'm thinking "this dude's ideas aren't totally fleshed out…
I get the point you made, but what I'm inferring is honestly a really simple concept.
Let me flesh it out for you.
Some words and phrases associate the concept of black with negativity for no good reason.
Even in 2024 racism is a huge thing.
The way we use language affects the way we think.
If there's no cost to using an alternative term and there's no logical reason to hang onto it .. why not make the change.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's blunt if youre using it for dumb shit in the same way that a hammer is a blunt instrument if used to break peoples stuff. If you are using it for highly domain specific knowledge its very good, whether that's protien folding, teaching you some arcane programming language macro, etc.
If we have to use an analogy I think a better analogy is that it’s blunt like a dull knife. From a ways back it might look sharp but zoom in and it’s not. The only way any of the current ai appears competent in any domain is if the user themselves it not.
I think its totally the other way around actually. It looks blunt from afar, but when you use it on specific fiddly things, it does a great job.
Domain experts get the most out of it. The average person really can't use it well.
I do agree with you that output on non domain specific tasks does not stand up to scrutiny. However, I often have to remind people that gpt4, and chatgpt in particular are not really llm's functioning at peak performance. gpt3 was amazing before rlhf. i assume the ungimped gpt4 was even better. Its unfortunate because it has damaged the reputation of what would otherwise be superhuman ai, so now everyone thinks ai is just a shitty ghost writer for corporate safe spam.
Don't get tricked.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#125My guess would be this is an overzealous AI-generated content detector. Amazon has been flooded with low quality AI generated books in the past ~year, and has been removing a lot of it. My guess would be they're still tweaking their algorithms as folks generating books change their tactics. Hopefully a human will respond soon!
>My guess would be this is an overzealous AI-generated content detector.
Maybe not. If you go by the screenshot of the email from Amazon in the Mastodon link, the book was removed for violating "Community Guidelines" instead of the actual content of the book itself.
This is the "Community Guidelines" url in that email: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
So taking Amazon's reason at face value, it means Amazon thinks the author (or author's friends) manipulated the "community" ... i.e. such as creating fake reviews, 5 stars ratings, etc.
An example of tripping the Amazon "community guidelines" algorithm would be something like a suspicious # of reviews coming from different Amazon customers but they're all from the same ip address.
As an example of "inadvertently" setting off Amazon's community guidelines detector... if you're going to ask friends & family to leave positive reviews for your book, make sure they don't do it while they're all there at your house for Thanksgiving dinner.
In the email, the author offered to take down his reviews in hopes that Amazon would reverse its decision.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't the term "blacklist" date back to medieval England, where it referred to the black book where the names of sinners were added?
Ultimately, we can only guess. The fact that there are more negative associations with 'black' in our language than 'white' seems more of a feature than a coincidence.
You should read the book Black: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau. He analyzes the history of symbolism using the color black in Europe.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Overly aggressive denials of simple requests ("please use another word") just make me wonder why you are so upset about it? Blacklist/whitelist DO reinforce the notion that black = bad and white = good, so what's the deal with using a different word? I truly don't understand why people would get upset by simple requests like that.
- "Blacklist/whitelist DO reinforce the notion that black = bad and white = good"
I'll bite. What's wrong with perpetuating the notion that the color black is evil and ruinous? Would humanity be kinder if we'd mourn our dead wearing colors other than black? (Would it be prosocial to start educating people about this issue at funerals?) Surely that's a much bigger concern than obscure jargon usage like "blacklist". If (accepting the premise for discussion) semantic overloading the word "black" actually harms people, then, I think associating black with people literally-dying should harm far more people, more seriously, than server configuration files.
If we're serious about this—if we mean what we say—we should prioritize the high-emotional-impact stuff, because that's logically where the heaviest sociological damage comes from. Death, disease, devils—all these classic associations. Not some anodyne computer pass/deny lists. Let's start talking White Sabbaths, and Light Satanic Mills.
(I think I agree with the intention behind these kinds of language ideas; I just don't think they can lead anywhere constructive).
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
No offence, I swear! Just a slight toothache and an overactive sense of saracsm here. But I am a bit lost now. I thought we were trying to avoid colour-terms-that-are-also-race-terms in language. Whitewashing ok, whitelist bad?
Could you please stop with the false niceness? If you want to be sarcastic you can just do that. Deception squicks me out.
Rejection sensitive dysphoria. On the fight/flight/freeze/fawn chart I land squarely on fawn. Sorry, I know it's offputting. I'll try to tone it down.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, we can only guess. The fact that there are more negative associations with 'black' in our language than 'white' seems more of a feature than a coincidence.
You should read the book Black: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau. He analyzes the history of symbolism using the color black in Europe.
Looks interesting!
I guess I still figure small things we can do to help redress the balance in terms of celebrating (rather than disparaging) blackness are worthwhile.
Re: Amazon has taken down the Sad Bastard Cookbook
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Overly aggressive denials of simple requests ("please use another word") just make me wonder why you are so upset about it? Blacklist/whitelist DO reinforce the notion that black = bad and white = good, so what's the deal with using a different word? I truly don't understand why people would get upset by simple requests like that.
- "Blacklist/whitelist DO reinforce the notion that black = bad and white = good" I'll bite. What's wrong with perpetuating the notion that the color black is evil and ruinous? Would humanity be kinder if we'd mourn our dead wearing colors other than black? (Would it be prosocial to start educating people about this issue at funerals?) Surely that's a much bigger concern than obscure jargon usage like "blacklist". If…
I appreciate your line of thinking.
Yes some societies celebrate death and wear bright colours to 'mourn'. And yes, there are benefits associated.
As to whether this is more or less of a concern than language usage; I'd argue the biggest problem with society today is absolutism. More than one thing can be—and usually is—true at any one time.
We rarely need to decide one or other .. and using this as a line of argument doesn't amount to much.
I think there's a simple way these language ideas can benefit society. Allowing young people with darker skin to grow up in a society that celebrates, rather than disparages blackness.