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Well this poor bastard (me) will be waiting for the RAM, SSDs, and hard drives to come back down in price.

I wanted to add that while it’s good to talk about LLM’s, part of this discussion is to explore either alternatives to their use or ways to partner the use of LLM’s with real human interaction. CEO Hawk for Discourse recently shared a blog post deep dive into Digg, and offers how Discourse has features in place to build trust in users and the community as a whole. Some of these features involve turning on email sign ups, a tiered system of membership that builds trust over time and engagement that opens up more options to the user (increased post limits, access to chat, increased edit limits, options to attach files). As I recall, this includes badges that can be visible to the community to demonstrate progress and acceptance.

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/05/the-digg-lesson-why-moderation-infrastructure-matters/

I recognize that CEO Hawk takes a similar view of LLM’s in the sense that there’s a concern if LLM use is rampant, then a community cannot differentiate between authentic engagement vs the concern I raised of astroturfing. I agree that this is a threat to proper discussion, and the Fediverse must answer this threat. I do agree that a “trust system” does provide a lot of answers, and in some ways PieFed has already introduced some of these trust based features.

I think the use of AI or LLMs for the Fediverse is a fair topic of discussion. Instances are run by volunteers, and these instances are free to dictate how their communities are to be administered. These Instance Admins can determine the jurisdictions that they operate under, and the laws that they are subject to. I’d suggest then the use of “AI” or LLM products are a choice made by each Instance.

But, just as Instance admins have these powerful choices, I believe that end users should also be given notice that these products are expected to be used so they can decide to continue with their account or move. I also recall that when many “Redditors” decided to leave, they also made a lot of fuss about salting their posts so that their contents not be used as training material to develop a commercial LLM. I’d point out this was a time when Meta and others were found to be combing the internet, downloading pirated materials, and using these for training purposes.

In 2026, these LLMs have already taken these pirated materials and public social media posts. There are news articles of how failed start-ups are even selling their Slack and other work related chats as training materials as well. In time, perhaps these issues can be properly litigated in courts. But for social media Instances run by volunteers, resources are limited already. I don’t think these Instances should be responsible for the privacy of the end users. Rather, good education in generating throw-away email addresses, strong passwords, and VPN use can give users real choices.

While there’s an argument that posts should not have any expectation of privacy, that doesn’t mean we don’t collectively share an interest in the value of privacy - a human right. I don’t believe users who sign up for accounts on the Fediverse and are asked for their email to set up an account, expect in turn that information to just be published to the world with full, open access without some kind of notice or choice to opt out, for example. Ultimately though, I believe the issue must be dealt with at the government level, and that means people getting pitted against professional lobbyists and politicians.

I want to also clarify that there will also be times when intervention is necessary. We’re here to join together in community, and “AI” or LLM activity that ultimately attacks that objective should be a top issue. For example, I’m not sure anyone here would be comfortable with “AI” duplicating an Instance and impersonating the community members within it. Yet that did happen on Mastodon. I recall the community responding, making reports and complaints to ultimately get the instance taken down. Another example would be AI or LLM accounts that do not identify themselves as bots, and are here to post on the Fediverse to astroturf issues or manipulate discussion are clear threats to proper discussion.

But I don’t want to digress too far from the original concern, which was how people feel about LLMs processing Fediverse posts, and related issues. Assuming we are not discussing materials that are already restricted or illegal, we cannot control what people choose to share on these platforms of themselves, and I don’t suggest we even attempt or consider it. But we can try to control how much information these platforms retain about its users - and I suggest that should be as close to zero or nil as possible. In this way, even if an Instance admin faces terrible pressure from a state, the platform itself has as close to nothing additional to report or share besides the face value posts of an account.

I’d also want to point out that we all do some form of labelling or profiling as we go over posts or read. Is there a difference between what we do already, and what an LLM does to create an opinion to profile a collection of posts? Humans get it wrong all the time, as would any LLM for that matter. Computers are valued because they’re good at copying and pasting information. What changed exactly if one person copy and pastes for free and for themselves, vs another who copy and pastes on behalf of a third party for a fee? I’m not really inviting philosophical discussion, this is mostly a question for myself. Whether the copy and paste procedure is done once by hand or thousands of times by computer, I’m still weighing the question.

I think it comes down to exploitation of asymmetric information and the appropriate use of the profits from this exploitation. But I suppose that’s always been an evergreen issue.

A related question that comes to mind is what jurisdiction’s laws should we all be exploring to avoid age verification completely?

I’m not suggesting we all get legal degrees or dispense legal advice, but as conscientious people who are also literate: Should the Fediverse identify lists of these jurisdictions for its community of small to very large instances, and resources to help decide whether those laws of favourable jursidictions should be adopted and some common pitfalls?

We all see the headlines of countries exploring bans on under 16s for social media in the name of improved ad and online surveillance. Which are the countries who are saying no or will resist this?

The US has slowly come alive to the issue of the world cutting them out of the conversation entirely with direct bilateral negotiations with Iran. This is the only way to forcefully inject the US back into the conversation. But as experts already point out, Iran has the home ground advantage. The US navy can maintain that position to block the strait, but antagonizing all of Asia will have consequences.

Asia’s countries face serious shortages of gas and diesel - which is well known. If the US presents itself as not just the cause, but now the enforcer of this very precarious position, many US allies will be forced into a terrible choice: Loyalty or survival.

https://www.arabianbusiness.com/finance/economy/south-korea-seeks-to-move-26-stranded-vessels-through-strait-of-hormuz-during-ceasefire

This is PR and American propaganda for the real sauce last month where Reddit, Meta, and Google basically assumed the proper position and voluntarily gave DHS info.

They suffered reputational damage, and this is their government compensation package: a promotional up-do.

https://gizmodo.com/reddit-meta-and-google-voluntarily-gave-dhs-info-of-anti-ice-users-report-says-2000722279

Is anyone even going anymore? Anyone got the jet fuel to get there and back?

I thought her family is Zionist. She spent her whole term as VP providing diplomatic protection for Israel, and in part served a meaningful role in one of the worst man made famines in human history and the destruction of Gaza. Maybe she’s not explicitly genocidal, but her actions are what brought the world to this exact global mess. Whether one blames Trump or not, there’s a sequence of actions taken to get here - I’m just saying Harris and the surrounding network is a part of that.

I suppose the world may be in the process of coming to terms that the Americans can no longer solve the issue internally. At some point, I wouldn’t be surprised as more countries just negotiate directly with Iran, and without the US.

DNC re-affirms that money is power, and its commitment of the US to the Israel vs. Middle East conflict.

Surely another sign that the US has everything under control and knows what they’re doing in Iran. /s

Wow…what a way to divorce the US military from reality and play into a fantasy conspiracy that Israel is somehow central to some scheme by the Illuminati, the Jesuits, the Freemasons, and the Zionists.

Western leaders folks…these champions are losing their marbles all over the floor.

Jon Stewart did an excellent interview with Maria Ressa of the Philippines, and they outlined how her country modelled itself with the US system of government. Unfortunately, the Philippines was used as a testing ground for American social media platforms, proving that the collapse of one branch of government did not engage any checks to balance the loss.

In her opinion, the collapse of one branch essentially meant the full collapse of government.

So police did not have to flag the file as AI generated, and don’t prioritize the review of these allegations by an actual human?

Did anyone tell that man he was unlawfully detained and has a civil claim against the government who knowingly and recklessly detained an innocent person?

I thought Panasonic makes those infrared ovens still. They’re still around!

A cynic in me suggests that this may be a move to push people off the system and disenfranchise them entirely, or the new rationale to create a second class of people who are forced to live with increased digital vulnerability while a new class of numbers can be generated with different privileges.

OpenAI is the same as any other publicly traded corporation: it serves society, but this service primarily focuses on the shareholders. We’re looking at a vehicle designed to take money, and give it to shareholders. (private in this case or otherwise)

Focus on growth of data centres at public expense, AI slop, the circular nature of some of the investments going into AI, and the productivity (or lack of), are part of it. We are not looking at any exceptionalism. AI isn’t unique in its capability for catastrophic harm. What we eat and drink can easily be on that list.

AI and these American companies, just want the money train to continue unabated, and any regulation to go away.

Share bud, there’s ladies living in tents in hotel rooms. I’m considering it.

Thanks for spelling out how to get started for me. I’ll give this a try later!

Thanks everyone for the responses!

Question: I do remember the days of those RSS buttons everywhere. But I never managed to see the value in it.

Can anyone share their experience with following feeds, and how they consume this content? Is there some kind of spam/tracker free functionality that people enjoy? Are there apps out there that organize this in a way that changes the game?

I’d like to give it another shot, sorry for all the questions.