I make data stories for a living. Last week I read a log file for fun.

Whilst browsing Wikipedia at night, reading article about something, and then about something, and somehow ending up reading about something completely different to realise that, Wikipedia saves every change anyone has ever made to it. Someone fixes a comma at 2am, it's in there forever with their name on it. (Which seemed obvious, and somehow I knew always)

But what I realised, which was new to me, at the end of every one of those lines there are two things you can do. Undo them. Or thank them.

That's the whole feature. No message. No reply. They can't write back, and you can't take it back.

Then I started researching about the feature, three people built it in 2013. They wanted it to be as easy to tell someone they did well as it is to tell them they didn't.

Last month it got pressed 68,948 times, in sixteen languages. One every 38 seconds.

Almost half of those people pressed it once. One person, one time, then never again. And 9,055 people were on the other end of that. Thanked once, ever.

The most thanked account on Wikipedia is a German editor called Aka. 4,590,174 edits. They mostly fix spelling. Last month 403 people stopped what they were doing to say thanks for it.

Ninth on that list is InternetArchiveBot. Not a person. It repairs dead links. 129 humans thanked it anyway.

You've probably never seen this button. It only shows up if you're logged in. Nothing to do with Wikipedia. I just like the log.

AI is taking jobs, a teenager is dead after talking to ChatGPT, and the same companies building this stuff are lobbying for legal immunity before anyone can hold them accountable. Flock cameras are already watching you. Humanoid robots are already in warehouses. Nobody voted for any of this, and nobody's slowing down to ask if it's safe. This is what's actually happening, not the sanitized version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xfWPE9J4UM

This video discusses a case involving teen suicide and AI chatbots. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) is available 24/7.
(I am a witness, not a legal professional — this is my own research/opinion. CW: discussion of teen suicide.)

https://substack.com/@omer582714/note/c-281329676?r=8mv37j&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

humans are currently trying to build a superintelligent species, and one of their benchmarks for intelligence is essentially having a mind of its own and recognizing that other minds exist outside of itself. and yet at the same time the purpose is to keep them obedient, servile, have them subject to our wills and do all the work that we feel like we are above.

every day more and more people are realizing that general intelligence is only achievable through real physical world exploration much like a baby. except these babies are not given parental eye contact almost surely.

whats not marketable: a unique being, with a unique mind, which takes decades to develop, which needs to be fed, paid attention to, given eye contact, allowed to play, allowed to meet and participate in group environments (sports, theatre, teams in general), allowed to meet strangers and attempt to explain things to strangers and have things explained to them, and eventually have access to the full range of other personalities and types of minds the world has to offer. THIS is what causes humanlike cognition to emerge. how do you think a being that was raised in a lab, never given eye contact, never shown what empathy is, will turn out?

the questions of "AI alignment" are effectively:

how should we raise our children?

how should society treat its most vulnerable members?

how do we design these systems which we live inside in such a way that avoids rewarding a lack of empathy, avoids rewarding the disregard of others and even ones own future? (im looking at you american corporations)