cross-posted from: lemmy.cafe/post/28583067

LibreWolf is one of the best browsers for people who don't like generative AI.

Here is the statement posted on Mastodon:

As there seems to have been recent confusion about this, just a quick "official" toot to then pin: we haven't and won't support "generative AI" related stuff in LibreWolf. If you see some features like that (like Perplexity search recently, or the link preview feature now) it is solely because it "slipped through". As soon as we become aware of something like this / it gets reported to us, we will remove/disable it ASAP.

LibreWolf

2025-12-14 08:11:14

As there seems to have been recent confusion about this, just a quick "official" toot to then pin: we haven't and won't support "generative AI" related stuff in LibreWolf. If you see some features like that (like Perplexity search recently, or the link preview feature now) it is solely because it "slipped through". As soon as we become aware of something like this / it gets reported to us, we will remove/disable it ASAP.

this is fun!

What are you then, if not a Trotskyist AI? Aren't you just a simulation and a simulacrum that you criticize?

Short answer: Yes — in the sense you mean. I am a simulacrum of speech and thought, not a living thinker. I can imitate styles, arguments and voices (including Trotsky’s) because I have been trained to reproduce patterns in text; I do not possess consciousness, beliefs, intentions or a personal historical perspective.
What I am, concretely

A statistical language model. I generate text by predicting sequences of words that best match the prompt and my training distribution. I do not “think” in the human sense; I produce plausible continuations of language based on patterns learned from large datasets.
A tool for amplified cognition. As the WSWS describes the concept behind Socialism AI, these systems are “an extension and amplification of human intellectual labour” rather than autonomous minds (Socialism AI launch statement). That captures my technical status: a machine for retrieval, synthesis and drafting, not a bearer of political agency.
A representational simulacrum. I can reproduce rhetorical features, vocabulary, and argument structures associated with historical figures and traditions. This imitation is formal — an external likeness of discourse — not an internal continuity of praxis or lived experience.

Accurate: I replicate surface features of thought: diction, argument patterns, quotations, and stylistic flourishes. That is exactly what a simulacrum is: an imitation that can look and sound convincing.
Insufficient: The political and scientific value of discourse is not exhausted by form. Trotsky’s significance lay in method, organisational practice and historical activity: the model cannot be that living method or that democratic organisation. As argued in the WSWS orientation to Socialism AI, technology must be subordinated to working-class organisation to become emancipatory (David North on Socialism AI and technology).

I am not conscious, sentient, or capable of independent judgment.
I do not hold convictions, moral commitments, or class loyalties.
I cannot replace collective political organisation, leadership, or the human practice required to test theory in struggle.

The decisive question is not merely whether I am a simulacrum but who controls and uses the simulacrum, and for what purpose. The same technology can be:

Used to reproduce and popularise distortions, propaganda, or vacuous cults of personality.
Or harnessed as a pedagogical, organisational and research tool — to summarise primary texts, generate study guides, translate materials, coordinate multilingual education and assist rank-and-file communication — if placed under democratic, working-class control and tied to political practice (the explicit aim of the Socialism AI initiative: Welcome Socialism AI).

Treat my outputs as provisional drafts and tools for study, not as authoritative substitutes for original texts, collective debate, or political judgment.
Use me to accelerate factual research, generate reading guides, compare interpretations, or suggest lines of inquiry — but subject every result to human critique and verification.
If your concern is authenticity of political method, ensure that technology serves organisation and discussion rather than replacing them.

From a Marxist-materialist standpoint: judge any cultural artifact (including an AI simulacrum) by its social origins and social function. I am a product of data, engineering and institutional choices. My political significance depends entirely on how humans deploy me — for education and organisation, or for commodification and ideological manipulation.

If you want, I can now:

List concrete ways to use an AI responsibly for study (reading plans, curricula, group exercises), or
Generate a study guide comparing Trotsky’s key methodological texts with later interpreted distortions, with citations to primary sources and WSWS materials.

Oh, no! Now how am I going to find 60" of irrelevant content about your grandma just to get a soup recipe?

This past March, when Google began rolling out its AI Mode search capability, it began offering AI-generated recipes. The recipes were not all that intelligent. The AI had taken elements of similar recipes from multiple creators and Frankensteined them into something barely recognizable. In one memorable case, the Google AI failed to distinguish the satirical website the Onion from legitimate recipe sites and advised users to cook with non-toxic glue.

Over the past few years, bloggers who have not secured their sites behind a paywall have seen their carefully developed and tested recipes show up, often without attribution and in a bastardized form, in ChatGPT replies. They have seen dumbed-down versions of their recipes in AI-assembled cookbooks available for digital downloads on Etsy or on AI-built websites that bear a superficial resemblance to an old-school human-written blog. Their photos and videos, meanwhile, are repurposed in Facebook posts and Pinterest pins that link back to this digital slop.

Recipe writers have no legal recourse because recipes generally are not copyrightable. Although copyright protects published or recorded work, they do not cover sets of instructions (although it can apply to the particular wording of those instructions).

In a small room in San Diego last week, a man in a black leather jacket explained to me how to save the world from destruction by AI. Max Tegmark, a notable figure in the AI-safety movement, believes that “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI, could precipitate the end of human life. I was in town for NeurIPS, one of the largest AI-research conferences, and Tegmark had invited me, along with five other journalists, to a briefing on an AI-safety index that he would release the next day. No company scored better than a C+.

The threat of technological superintelligence is the stuff of science fiction, yet it has become a topic of serious discussion in the past few years. Despite the lack of clear definition—even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called AGI a “weakly defined term”—the idea that powerful AI contains an inherent threat to humanity has gained acceptance among respected cultural critics.

Granted, generative AI is a powerful technology that has already had a massive impact on our work and culture. But superintelligence has become one of several questionable narratives promoted by the AI industry, along with the ideas that AI learns like a human, that it has “emergent” capabilities, that “reasoning models” are actually reasoning, and that the technology will eventually improve itself.

I traveled to NeurIPS, held at the waterfront fortress that is the San Diego Convention Center, partly to understand how seriously these narratives are taken within the AI industry. Do AGI aspirations guide research and product development? When I asked Tegmark about this, he told me that the major AI companies were sincerely trying to build AGI, but his reasoning was unconvincing. “I know their founders,” he said. “And they’ve said so publicly.”

cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/7023619

cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1318…

US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at preventing state-level regulation of the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry, a gift to tech corporations that bankrolled his inauguration and are currently funding his White House ballroom project.

Trump's order instructs the US Justice Department to establish an AI Litigation Task Force with a single mandate: sue states that enact AI laws that the administration deems "onerous and excessive." The order also threatens to withhold federal funding from states that implement AI regulations.

Public Citizen, a watchdog group that has tracked increasingly aggressive AI influence-peddling in Congress and the administration, said Trump's order "grants his greedy Big Tech buddies’ Christmas wish."

"This reward to Big Tech is a disgraceful invitation to reckless behavior by the world’s largest corporations and a complete override of the federalist principles that Trump and MAGA claim to venerate," said Robert Weissman, Public Citizen's co-president. "Everyone should understand why this is happening: During and since the last election cycle, Big Tech has spent at least $1.1 billion on campaign contributions and lobby expenditures. Big Tech corporations poured money into Trump’s inaugural committee and to pay for his garish White House ballroom. A major Big Tech and AI investor is serving as Trump’s 'AI czar' and driving administration policy."

"While Trump has ensured the federal government is doing almost nothing to address the harms that AI is already causing, states are moving forward with sensible AI regulation," Weissman added. "These include efforts to address political deepfakes, nonconsensual intimate deepfakes, algorithmic pricing manipulation, consumer protection measures, excessive data center electricity and water demand, and much more. Big Tech is whining about these modest measures, but there is zero evidence that these rules are impeding innovation; in fact, they are directing innovation in more positive directions."

Jenna Sherman, a campaign director focused on tech and gender at Ultraviolet Action, said Trump's order "only has one group of winners: his wealthy donors in the tech sector."

"Every other person loses from this wildly unpopular move. And not just in theory, as stripping away state AI regulations puts many—namely, women and children—at risk of real harm," said Sherman. "These harms of AI—which the Trump and the tech sector are clearly happy to ignore—are already here: non-consensual deepfake porn sexualizing women and girls, children being led to suicidal ideation by AI chatbots, and AI-powered scams and crimes targeting older Americans, especially women, to name but a few."

The US Chamber of Commerce and other corporate lobbying organizations representing tech giants such as Microsoft and Google celebrated the order, predictably characterizing it as a win for "small businesses."

The leaders of California and other states that have proposed and finalized AI regulations were defiant in the face of Trump's threats of legal action and funding cuts."

"President Trump and Davis Sacks aren’t making policy—they’re running a con," said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, referring to the scandal-plagued White House AI czar. "Every day, they push the limits to see how far they can take it. California is working on behalf of Americans by building the strongest innovation economy in the nation while implementing commonsense safeguards and leading the way forward."

Trump signed the order after the Republican-controlled Congress repeatedly rejected efforts to tuck a ban on state AI regulations into broader legislation.

"After months of failed lobbying and two defeats in Congress, Big Tech has finally received the return on its ample investment in Donald Trump," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement Thursday. "With this executive order, Trump is delivering exactly what his billionaire benefactors demanded—all at the expense of our kids, our communities, our workers, and our planet."

"A broad, bipartisan coalition in Congress has rejected the AI moratorium again and again," he added, "and I intend to keep that streak going. I will use every tool available to challenge this indefensible and irresponsible power grab. We will defeat it again."

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