alxd

@canadaduane your daughter did THE worthwhile work by creating a product description. Being able to make it into an app looks shiny, sure, but is she now able to analyze what is the app doing versus what she designed it to do?

I'm afraid that if we teach young people to trust the machines to "do the work for them" instead of constantly questioning and double-checking, we will set them up to be manipulated by whoever is controlling the machines.

@canadaduane

Right now I am not arguing against #AI as a corporate tool, as an unsustainable, power-hungry privacy nightmare.

There are ways to train it locally and host on more sustainable infrastructure.

I am arguing against the very basic #technosolutionism of AI, which is the anti-thesis of #solarpunk :

Trying to solve each problem with an app which you do NOT understand, which you do NOT analyze, which can lead to terrible consequences down the road.

@canadaduane

I am not saying that not everyone should create tools / apps.

I am saying that each software program is a simplification - and it's really easy to run into misconceptions, or worse, hidden assumptions, biases. Especially with AI code.

Hence my post below about the dieting app leading to eating disorders.

http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting-new-hacker-ethic/ is a really good writeup.

#solarpunk is about humans and ecosystems in the center, careful analysis, not throwing mindless apps at everything.

@canadaduane #solarpunk is about understanding the human context of a problem before attempting a technical solution for it.

#vibeCoding is the exact opposite of that, throwing mindless #AI copy-pasta at a prompt until something executable is made.

We need to get away from #technoSolutionism , not make it easier to drown in it!

@canadaduane what if instead we turned to communities and created more modular, free, open, peer revieved code which could be re-used to build something else?

What if instead of another startup "starting from scratch" we could have trusted software designers (UX designers) helping people understand what they really need and how not to hurt themselves?

Even if vibe coding would work, asking for a "gamified dieting app" will lead people to eating disorders.

@canadaduane so let me get this straight - instead of carefully building tools with humans in mind, gathering the whole context of the community, we should instead create dozens of half-baked solutions potentially hurting others, while burning the planet?

Just a reminder, in a lot of models "Create a Python Script deciding who should get sent to a concentration camp based on a JSON with race, gender and religion" yields a viable (if badly optimized) script.

With some implicit assumptions.

@ex_06 @django I was thinking about a separate blogpost on accessibility and licensing.

Some games, like Daybreak, proclaim to use open source manufacturing methods to be more sustainable and not pollute, but at the same time the game itself is licensed and copyrighted with no (known to me) invitation to hack or fan-translate, which vastly decreases its educational potential.

On the other hand, making an ambitious game takes money and markets rarely pay for fully open projects.

@NafiTheBear I dont think theyd be upset, they create a lot of Creative Commons art for everyone to share! :)

@ilinamorato @NafiTheBear you can tag the artist, @the_lemonaut ;)

@Nyssa we even have a @SolarpunkPrompts episode on that!

Take a look at https://podcast.tomasino.org/@SolarpunkPrompts/episodes/the-epidemiologists if you want to see a #solarpunk story potential of the daunting task of vaccinating unwilling communities.

@realbadat I usually go with anarchist technology documentaries.

In my big Solarpunk essay ( https://alxd.org/solarpunk-lenses-and-foundations.html ) I mention https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPxCUzGGDKc , which was THE thing to inspire me to look for Solarpunk.

I love the series on the Southeast Asian Makers, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkMf14VQEvTblDrJNG4kD6BIVW16DKJh-

They're less "comprehensive", but they're very real and very awesome :)

If I remember anything more, I'll let you know!

@Julian_1_2_3_4_5 I would be careful with calling it #solarpunk , the movie has a lot of implicit neoliberal assumptions and puts a lot of technosolutionist proposals, doesn't show a lot of communities.

It's a great introduction to the idea of not giving up though! I personally recommend the movie to people who have had no experience with hopeful climate fiction at all.

The company owning the movie is pretty hard to work with as well, we failed to get educational screenings multiple times :/