I follow getonepass.eu on LinkedIn as it is the main gateway for EU funding.

Clark W. Griswold #resist

@onepict “shouldn’t we be better than this?”
An LLM must produce output that largely aligns with the probability distribution of its training data. It can only reproduce the most common outcomes from the past. If the future we want is not abundantly present in our past (i.e. the most frequent occurrence) then we cannot build a better future using an AI trained on our past.

[email protected]

@vfrmedia
"What the people allocating funding really need is more text based on less accurate fundamental data.
I thought that the chatgpt effect would be to increase funders' demands for numbers, modelling and impact projections. (But I guess this is why I'm trying to learn programming at the same time as write funding applications...)
@onepict @ps

FediThing 🏳️‍🌈

@onepict @vfrmedia

Even then though, don't they realise they will run out of training data for their models if no humans are actually writing this stuff by hand?

Are they thinking LLM actually comes up with this by itself? Have they not seen what happens when it isn't given human-made training data?

They are sawing the branch they are sitting on if they discourage people from writing stuff, do they not realise this?

scmbradley

@onepict I was going to say "but surely if most people are using LLMs, then writing the thing yourself will make you stand out" but then I realised that finding bodies and reviewers are probably also going to be using LLMs and actual human writing won't be a feature they notice. Ugh I hate it all.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@paco exactly.

There was a point a few years ago when the EUs Investment mechanism was seriously going to use AI to assess the applications to its EIC fund for the first stage.

I remember sitting in an NGI Tetra presentation feeling horrified at the prospect, when the presenter told us about it.

Then they stopped publishing about it.

So I hope they changed their mind.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@priryo @vfrmedia

Yep, there's not a lot of support for developers or for support around the developers.

A Few thoughts on FOSS Sustainability

(www.onepict.com)

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@FediThing @vfrmedia nope, because as far as I can tell they want to believe in the magic snake oil.

Plus I'm fairly sure the folks running the onepass LinkedIn account is an intern and just following the company culture. As an org FundingBox is very much focused on Blockchain and start-up ethos.

I think they think they are doing great things and changing the world.

Having been around that kind of culture, it's kinda shallow "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain stuff."

Clark W. Griswold #resist

@onepict Job seeking in the US is like that now. Companies use AI to screen candidates, and candidates use AI to answer the screening questions, do the assessments, and write their CVs, and submit applications. It’s just AI eating itself.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@paco it's going to be a painful future.

MxFraud

@onepict if I start now, maybe I'll be ready for the "zero proof" hype and get funding for something then

I dont see how AI can keep racking funding with little output for more than a year or two

FediThing 🏳️‍🌈

@onepict @vfrmedia

So, they want to protect the status quo, but they are encouraging unsustainable ways of doing things which will inevitably destroy the status quo (and in a really bad way that hurts everyone, not in a positive reforming way).

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@FediThing @onepict risks creating a vicious circle where all the funding goes to "tech bro" friendly projects, normal people don't even want the services from them, and stay with GAFAM etc

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@mxfraud in the meantime it's going to cut onto a lot of FOSS funding if the NGI ecosystem doesn't get renewed or even if it does the year after.

Like there will be money on the table for FOSS in the EU through to 2027. That's the current tranch across all the NGI funds and third parties. Which includes support for projects through @review

Librecast on building the next-generation internet: “The code we create and the tools we use can help or harm humanity. We write our political values into our code”

This month we speak to Esther Payne, community manager and privacy advocate at Librecast. The organisation develops free and open-source (FOSS) software to enable multicast transmitting data to groups simultaneously without depending on a centralised structure.

Association for Progressive Communications (www.apc.org)

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@mxfraud But no new tranch means nothing beyond it and we're having to apply through onepass. If any of the FOSS projects fit the funds posted on there.

I think it's going to be extremely slim pickings.

FediThing 🏳️‍🌈

@vfrmedia @onepict

If the end goal of a techbro is to be bought out by a larger company for a massive payoff, then guess it doesn't matter if people use their services or not?

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@vfrmedia @FediThing yep. As I said in my sustainability post on my blog, we need mutual aid for FOSS.

A Few thoughts on FOSS Sustainability

(www.onepict.com)

Although frankly I want UBI.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@FediThing @vfrmedia And here's where we get the BBC navel gazing going why are there no Google's in the UK?

Like every 10 years. Draghi just answered it for you folks. The unicorns leave for the US.

EU ‘needs €800bn-a-year spending boost to avert agonising decline’

Report by Mario Draghi calls for additional investment to regain growth and prevent social unrest

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

"The report highlighted how 30% of EU startup businesses that had grown to be valued at more than €1bn – known as unicorns – had moved abroad, and mostly to list on stock markets in the US."

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@onepict @FediThing

But do we *want* companies that constantly seek "less regulation" and sell peoples data like in USA?

Also China often subsidises companies which make advanced garage equipment (both for conventional ICE cars and EVs) or relatively mundane items such as tools, electrical goods, small form factor general purpose computers.

Items that *everyone* can make use of..

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@vfrmedia @FediThing I don't want companies like that, but there's a certain class of BBC tech reporter from the earlier days that seems to be breathless in reporting about creating that sort of company in the UK.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@vfrmedia @FediThing But it's also the soft acknowledgement of power.

Some people in the UK want the power of tech in the hands of people they know, who they went to school with etc.

Power and the class of people used to wielding it are wedded.

Which we should always push back against and question why that power is there and who has it.